Samsung has once again taken the top spot for mobile market share in the United States after attracting more than a quarter of mobile subscribers. The Korean company claimed 26.3% of the market as of October 2012, but rival Apple is quickly catching up. The iPhone maker saw the highest level of growth among cellphone manufacturers, and managed to overtake LG to take second place.
Just over a week ago, Apple and HTC decided to end their patent disputes with a 10-year cross-licensing agreement. The specifics of the agreement were not disclosed, and as with all things that aren’t disclosed, it lead to rampant rumor mongering.
Last year, Apple joined forces with Microsoft, Research in Motion, and Sony to form the “Rockstar Bidco consortium,” which outbid Google for more than 6,000 Nortel patents covering wireless and LTE technologies. Together, the consortium paid $4.5 billion for the portfolio, most of which — around $2.6 billion — came from Apple.
However, the Cupertino company has reportedly been quietly handing over more cash to secure sole ownership of select patents.
To say Samsung and Apple have a strained relationship would be quite the understatement. A once symbiotic partnership has turned into an all out war over claims of patent infringement and design copying. Their global legal battles have disgusted enough judges and consumers to spawn serious debate over the current status of our patent system and a call for reform.
After years of battling in courtrooms around the world, Apple and HTC have reached an agreement over patent licensing that will be in effect for the next 10 years. Both companies have spent millions of dollars in ongoing lawsuits relating specifically to smartphone patents for the iPhone and HTC’s Android devices.
HTC was sued first by Apple back in 2010 with more than a dozen iPhone-related patents, and HTC then sued Apple a year later with infringement claims relating to not only the iPhone, but also the iPad and Mac.
Apple’s joint press release with HTC today announces the end of a long and tedious battle over patent litigation:
Apple’s overactive approach to defending its patents may sometimes make it look like one of the industry’s biggest bullies, but you may be surprised to hear that the Cupertino used to patent hardly anything. In fact, it only began patenting its inventions after years of patent suit losses, one of which saw the company fined $100 million for creating the iPod.
On Tuesday, the first Geekbench benchmarks surfaced for the iPhone 5. Those have been followed by SunSpider Javascript benchmarks which show Apple’s latest iPhone 5 beats everything when it comes to Javascript performance. It’s twice as fast as the iPhone 4S, and significantly snappier than high-end Android handsets like the Samsung Galaxy S III, the HTC One X, and the new LG Optimus G.
When Apple unveiled the iPhone 5 last week, the company promised that its custom A6 chip deliver performance twice as fast as its predecessor, the iPhone 4S. But according to the handset’s first benchmarks, this isn’t just the fastest iPhone yet — it’s also one of the most powerful smartphones money can buy.
If you are one of the many who were holding off on buying a new smartphone until after Apple unveiled the iPhone 5, it’s now time to make a decision. You’ve seen what the iPhone 5 has to offer and now it’s time to compare it to what’s available on Android. I’ll show you a few options, how they compare to the iPhone 5, and then you can decide what’s the best option for you. Ready to explore?
If you’re in the market for a tablet, and you don’t mind adopting Google’s Android platform, then the choice available to you right now is incredible. Amazon alone announced a pair of new Kindle Fire HD tablets on Thursday that feature an impressive selection of specifications, with 7- and 8.9-inch displays, that are priced at $199 and $299 respectively.
But despite those tiny price tags, it’s unlikely Amazon’s tablets will prove to be a more attractive choice than the iPad for most. Analysts are confident that Apple’s device will remain the market leader, particularly with a rumored iPad mini on its way in October.
I’ve lost count of the number of iPhone 5 parts that have leaked out of Apple’s Chinese factories. But one thing that’s been notably absent from those leaks is the device’s new processor. We’ve questioned whether it will use the same A5X chip that features in the new iPad, or whether it will get an all-new A6 processor.
Thanks to the latest leak, that has become a little clearer.
The good news is that HTC’s next 10-inch tablet won’t look like an iPad. Instead, it will look nearly identical to a unibody iMac instead, right down to its OS X style dock and lopsided, 16:9 aspect ratio design.
Apple has been granted what has been described as “the mother of all software patents,” which covers a whole host of features that Apple pioneered with the iPhone. Not only is this huge for Apple in its fight against copycats, but it could have a significant affect on almost every single device that rivals the iPhone or the iPad.
Another day, another patent infringement story. Today, HTC brought a couple of counterclaims against Apple in Florida over two patents it bought from HP last December.
The case they’re asserting the claims in is one that started in 2010, with a Motorola lawsuit against Apple. Six of the twelve Apple counterclaims in that lawsuit also concerned HTC. While HTC motioned to transfer the case out of Miami, they had to respond to those counterclaims. They did so by filing their own counterclaims.
Since its debut back in 2009, the iPad has dominated the tablet market. At the time of writing this piece, the device holds around 55% of the market share in the United States. Rival tablets from the likes of Amazon, Samsung, and HTC have tried to do battle with it, but they’ve had very little impact on its success.
But there is one tablet that Apple will need to keep its eye on: Microsoft’s new Surface. It’s already being dubbed an “iPad killer” by some, and although we’re skeptical the Windows-powered slate will “kill” Apple’s device, there are a number of reasons why the “Pro” variant will have more of an impact than you think.
Apple is very quick to jump on rival companies who infringe upon its patents, and the company is currently embroiled in a number of legal battles with the likes of Samsung and HTC. But sometimes, Apple is on the receiving end of these complaints. In China, the Cupertino company is being sued for infringing upon a voice assistant patent with its Siri feature.
A U.K. judge has ruled in favor of HTC over claims that the Taiwanese smartphone vendor infringes four of Apple’s patents for touchscreen technology, including its famous slide-to-unlock feature. Judge Christopher Floyd decided that HTC’s smartphones are not guilty of infringement, and that three of Apple’s four patents are invalid.
The last couple of weeks have seen quite a few wins for Apple in court. Bans against US sales of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and new Galaxy Nexus phone, for starters, were successful.
Apple’s request for an “emergency ban” for HTC phones, however, was denied today, allowing smartphone manufacturer HTC to continue to sell its latest devices while the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) investigates Apple’s patent infringement claim against the Taiwanese-based company.
Sprint has just announced the availability of the HTC Bluetooth music adaptor for wirelessly streaming music from your phone through your car stereo speakers. It’s a fairly expensive adaptor at $59.99 and considering it plugs into a 3.5mm aux port, it’ll leave you wondering “why not just buy a cheap aux cable?”
AT&T is one of 48 carriers worldwide which have a network vulnerability that allows hackers to intercept cellular data and inject malicious content into the traffic that passes between smartphones and the websites they visit. The flaw can be used to transfer code to unencrypted pages which causes a user to perform unintended actions, like sending messages or friend requests from Facebook and Twitter. And your iPhone may be vulnerable.
By now, I’m sure you may have heard about how U.S. Customs is holding all of the HTC One X and EVO 4G LTE phones hostage as they investigate allegations over patent infringement stemming from a ruling Apple won against HTC back in December. The ban essentially went into effect in April of 2012, but what most of us don’t understand is why the investigation at Customs? HTC has already created a work around for the infringement and even responded back in December about it:
With so many contrasting rumors in recent weeks, it has been hard to predict whether or not Apple will increase the size of the display for its sixth-generation iPhone. But according to sources for The Wall Street Journal, the Cupertino company is preparing to break away from its existing 3.5-inch panels in favor of a display measuring “at least 4 inches diagonally.”
In December of 2011 the International Trade Commission (ITC) ruled in favor of Apple for placing a ban on the U.S. import of multiple HTC smartphones. It was the first major exclusion ban of its kind, and it all hinged on one Apple patent.
The HTC import ban went into effect on April 19, 2012, and the delay was meant to give HTC time to re-engineer around the infringing issues. HTC said it was going to have everything cleared and ready to go in time, but U.S. Customs has now halted the One X and Evo 4G LTE from crossing the border.
When analysts and companies compare mobile devices, the big number everyone focuses on is how much market share each platform or product has in relation to its competitors. While this makes for a good overall view of the playing field, it doesn’t always give a clear or accurate picture of which companies are doing well on a single metric as a model for success and ignores others, like whether a platform or manufacturer managed to turn a significant profit.
This is, of course, a very big point when discussing Apple’s iOS succes compared to Android as a whole or to individual manufacturers – and something that Asymco’s latest review of the mobile phone market in which Apple accounts for a small 8.8% of handsets but reaps a whopping 73% of the industry’s profits.
While the vast majority of the world’s tech press was focused on Apple’s record-breaking quarter yesterday, HTC quietly announced its own figures. Unlike Apple, the Taiwanese company reported a huge 70% drop in profits after raking in just $151.5 million during the three-month period. And it says the iPhone 4S is the main reason for its dismal quarter.
