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Finally, Apple is dragging one of the many copycat hardware makers into court for copying Apple’s brilliant ideas.

Or…

Apple joins in on the lawsuit frenzy to win in the courts instead of competing on features, price and user friendliness.

What are we to make of Apple’s recent lawsuit against Samsung? Is Apple right? Did Samsung “slavishly copy Apple’s innovative technology, distinctive user interfaces, and elegant and distinctive product and packaging design”?

What’s the likely outcome? Why Samsung? Why now?

The legal mumbo jumbo surrounding cases like these make them boring as hell. But the impact of this turn of events could be far reaching, and affect the future of computing and mobility.

What you need to know is that while this lawsuit seems narrow and specific — targeting a handful of Samsung devices for copying the iPad and iPhone — it’s really a warning for industry at large, and about the entire iOS family of products, from wristwatches today to desktops tomorrow and everything in between.

This is not about the iPad vs. the Tab. It’s about Apple’s very unique approach to everything vs. everyone else’s business-as-usual — and it’s about the future of computing.

When the Verizon iPhone was launched, Apple went on record saying that they did not think LTE or 4G was a good fit right now, in that the first-gen chips were still too big and power efficient to make sense.

Will we see an iPhone 4G in September, though? It doesn’t seem likely. Forbes is reporting that the chips required to produce well-designed LTE iPhones simply won’t be around until late in the year at the earliest… and possibly not until 2012.

Your iPhone does more than just make calls. It’s the perfect companion for almost every situation because there’s an app for almost everything. Having taken my iPhone 4 with me on a couple hikes to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, I can attest that it’s an amazing tool to keep by your side during outdoor excursions. Of course that is until you see your battery meter dip below 3%. At which point the iPhone 4 becomes just an expensive piece of metal and glass. To aid your charging dilemmas on your next camping trips, Solio has created a great line of portable solar chargers.

Solio’s Mono Charger ($60), combines a high-efficiency solar cell, with a long life lithium-ion rechargeable battery in a solid impact resistant casing for all those adventurers who need battery power no matter where they journey. The design of the device is incredibly simple. Nothing detracts from the solar panel, and it’s very easy to use. To begin charging simply place it in the sun and press the Start button on the back of the device. A red LED light will blink to indicate that it’s collecting energy.

Apple’s done much to improve its ranking in Greenpeace’s rankings of the most green-friendly tech companies in the world thanks to radical design decisions (like switching from plastic to aluminum for its Macs) and embracing smart, minimalistic packaging. In fact, after a few years, they’d managed to crawl pretty high on the list.

Apple’s physical products remain pretty green friendly, but in a new report presented by Greenpeace, Apple ranks at the very bottom of a list of ten Internet companies whose data facilities are dirtiest. And it’s all because of their new North Carolina data super-center.

Right now, there are effectively two iPhone 4s: the CDMA version and the GSM version. From an American viewpoint, one runs on Verizon, the other runs on AT&T, but are otherwise identical handsets… yet because of the vagaries of cellular communication technologies, these handsets are actually tangibly different phones.

This isn’t the sort of situation Apple likes. They avoid forking hardware as much as possible, and if they are forced to fork a product — as they did with iOS when the original iPad was released — they converge those tines into a single product as quickly possible (in this example, iOS 4.1).

So we know that eventually, Apple just wants to make one iPhone that they can sell on both CDMA and GSM networks. And according to Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo speaking at their quarterly earnings conference call, that iPhone will be the iPhone 5, a truly “global device.”

Verizon CFO Fran Shammo, asked about the sluggishness of the company’s ARPU growth in Q1, when the iPhone was introduced – growth was just 2.2%, compared to 2.5% in Q4, remarked:

“The fluctuation, I believe, will come when a new device from Apple is launched, whenever that may be, and that we will be, on the first time, on equal footing with our competitors on a new phone hitting the market, which will also be a global device.”

The technology’s already there, of course. Inside the Verizon iPhone 4 is a Qualcomm chipset that would technically allow the CDMA iPhone to run on any GSM or CDMA network around the world, but it’s not a chipset design issue alone: there’s also the antenna to consider.

If Shammo’s right, expect the tines to converge again in September, when Apple releases the iPhone 5. And expect the iPhone 5 to have a very different antenna design at that.

[via Macrumors]

Apple could be planning an event to commemorate the 10th anniversary of its retail stores, after the company told its retail employees this week that they could not request vacation days in late May.

An AppleInsider report reveals an email was sent to Apple retail employees informing them that they could not request days off between May 20th and May 22nd. Store managers are apparently “very excited” about these dates, but it seems no further information is currently available.

Gary Allen of ifoAppleStore.com – a website dedicated to news and information about Apple’s retail stores – said that Apple may hold an event to “attract a crowd” for a few days as a way of celebrating the 10-year milestone.

It’s unlikely, however, that the event will see a new product launch. Though Apple is expected to update its iMac lineup to introduce the latest Sandy Bridge processors, this isn’t usually an occasion that would prevent retail employees from taking vacation.

The last time Apple enforced this rule was earlier this year for two major product launches: the Verizon iPhone 4 and the iPad 2. Don’t bother getting your hopes up for the iPhone 5, though – recent reports don’t expect that until at least September.

Update: MacRumors have since received some information that suggests this may well be due to internal training, rather than an event.

The iCade by ThinkGeek is an iPad accessory that turns your device into the ultimate retro games machine. It looks just like a tabletop arcade cabinet straight out of the 80s, and boasts a joystick with an 8-button control pad.

The iCade began as an April Fools’ Day spoof back in 2010 that became an incredibly popular story. ThinkGeek obviously saw how successful the device could be thanks to all the hype, and got to work on making the dream a reality. Now the iCade is available to pre-order.

They have worked closely with Atari to make the iCade fully compatible with Atari’s Greatest Hits – the recently released iOS app that features a library of classic arcade titles such as Asteroids, Missile Command and Pong. The control API will also be released soon, and will allow other developers to create games that are compatible with the iCade accessory.

You can pre-order the iCade from ThinkGeek now for $99.99, with shipping due to start on May 20th. Unfortunately it’s only available to residents of the U.S.

[via AppAdvice]

Reports yesterday revealed that your iPhone and iPad 3G have been secretly logging the date, time, latitude and longitude of every place you have ever been, then storing this information in an unencrypted file on your computer when you sync your device with iTunes.

Untrackerd is a new jaibreak utility that promises to stamp out this invasion of your privacy:

This package installs a daemon (process that can run in the background) to clean consolidated.db file) No new icons are added to your homescreen. There are no options to configure.

The iPhone tracking issue that’s causing a big privacy stink isn’t new and isn’t really tracking users, says an iOS forensics researcher.

It’s actually a data file that is used internally by the iPhone to do things like geo-tag photos, and it’s been in iOS for a long time (in a different form).

What’s new is a nifty extraction tool called iPhoneTracker that pulls the data off your hard drive and makes a striking map out of it. iPhoneTracker was released this week at O’Reilly’s Where 2.0 conference, causing a huge outcry about privacy and prompting U.S. Senator Al Franken to write to Steve Jobs.

In addition, the file has become more accessible than it used to be because it’s now used by third-party apps that require location data.

“It is not secret, malicious, or hidden,” writes Alex Levinson, an iOS forensics researcher.

Apple has just posted their Q2 2011 financial results and, hey, surprise! Record numbers all around despite some lower-than-expected sales numbers, with all-around profit sitting pretty at $5.99 billion. Read on for more details.

The big news today is all about how Apple has apparently been busy secretly squirreling away data about your movements on your iPhone 4 or GPS-equipped iPad, and storing it in a file on your computer via syncing. Is this a big deal, or business as usual, just a giant tech company doing its thing?

[polldaddy poll=4946757]

Needless to say, the iPad is utterly dominating the still nascent tablet market… but the extent of its domination might surprise you: according to New York based ABI Research, Apple controls eighty-five percent of the tablet market.

If you travel around with an iPhone in your pocket or an iPad 3G in your bag, Apple knows everywhere you’ve ever been since the moment you started using your device. Even worse, it stores that information in a non-encrypted file structure that is synced with your computer every time you plug your device into iTunes.

I’m a huge bluetooth headset fan. In fact, I don’t mean to brag, but I’ve been doin’ it “hands free” since the early aughts. So naturally when I heard Jawbone had a hot new headset on the market, the Jawbone Era, I was excited to get my hands on it and give it a go.

Three people with knowledge of Apple’s supply chain have revealed that the iPhone 5 will feature a faster processor and will begin shipping in September, according to a new Reuters report. The device will look similar to the iPhone 4 and will go into production around July/August.

The rather short report doesn’t really give us any juicy details, and only ties in with previous rumors that have already suggested the next-generation iPhone will feature a faster processor, and will ship before the end of 2011.

Other reports have speculated the device will boast an 8-megapixel camera, increased storage options, a dual-mode wireless chip to support both CDMA and GSM carriers, and will be capable of shooting 1080p video. Some have also claimed the device will feature an aluminum rear casing, similar to that of the iPod touch.

The faster processor will inevitably be Apple’s new dual-core A5 chip which features in the iPad 2.

The iPhone is a phenomenal tool for a bit of tromping about in the bush; navigation, stargazing, photographing/filming and even staying alive can all be accomplished with the help of the little gadget. That is, if it’s got any juice left.

Solio’s Rocsta ($80) — a solar panel mated to a thin slab of a battery in a sleek, flat, user-friendly housing — seems to have been created with a nod to minimalist adventurous types who want a rugged, no-fuss solar charger aong on their next Iditarod or photo shoot for National Geographic.

Apple’s usually pretty good about crowing about the number of devices it’s managed to sell to consumers… at least when they’re selling well. Yet Cupertino has kept iPod Touch numbers surprisingly close to its breast since the plucky touch PMP debuted in 2007.

Not that Apple hasn’t released numbers at all, just that they generally dump all iPod numbers into one catch-all “iPod” category. No one’s ever really believed this was because the Touch was a shameful dud — clearly it’s a hot seller — but if you ever wanted to know exactly how many iPod Touches were floating out there in the wild, just waiting to beam out their secret personality suppression fields once Steve Jobs finally gets around to thumbing that “Global Domination” button in his office… well, you had to guesstimate.

No longer. One interesting little perk of Apple’s lawsuit against Samsung is that we finally know how many iPod Touches have been sold: 60 million since it launched in September 2007.

Everyone backup your iTunes library then light their iMac on fire and dramatically hurl it out of your window while blaring “God Save The Queen” from your iPad, because new iMacs are on their way!

Well, or so the theory goes. 9to5Mac reports that iMac supplies are becoming constrained. Since Apple’s Tim Cook is basically some sort of Cylon when it comes to having exactly enough stock on-hand to match demand, that’s as much an unmistakeable sign that new hardware is coming as the heavens rending in twain to make way for a seraphim riding a flaming rhinoceros would be for the Apocalypse, or at the very least, the day the PlayBook outsells the iPad.

What’s in store for the new iMacs? Apple’s new 10Gbps bi-directional I/O port, ThunderBolt, is a lock, and I expect we’ll see some blazing new Sandy Bridge chips as well.Either way, the last iMac refresh took place in July, so we’re about due.

An iPhone 4 running a “test version” of iOS has been discovered by Vietnamese site tinhte.vn, and reveals a new Expose-like multitasking UI and a revamped Spotlight search function. Two videos published by the site demonstrate these new features, along with some pretty interesting hardware in the form a white, 64GB iPhone 4.

In this test version of iOS, double-tapping the home button displays your multitasking applications in a manner similar to that of Expose on your Mac. Instead of icons for the applications you have running – like you currently see in iOS 4 – you see a preview window for each application.

Crackle is one of the fastest-growing digital entertainment networks, offering hundreds of high quality Hollywood movies and TV series from Columbia Pictures, Tri-Star, Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Classics and more.

Fans of the service couldn’t previously enjoy this content on their iOS device due to its Flash-based website, however, the official Crackle application is now available to download in the App Store.

The application is free and supports all iOS devices, while the content is ad-supported and free to watch. It lets you enjoy high quality content over Wi-Fi and 3G and build your own queue of content for viewing online or on your iOS device.

Crackle currently features movies such as The Da Vinci Code, Big Daddy, Ghostbusters, and Snatch, while its TV series collection boasts Seinfeld, Spider-Man, Married With Children, and The Three Stooges, amongst hundreds of other great titles.

Sudden changes to App Store rankings for both free and paid games and applications has led to speculation that Apple has changed its App Store ranking algorithm. The App Store’s bestselling chart was previously based purely on the number of times an app was downloaded; now it seems like application usage is also taken into account when iOS apps are ranked.

One of the most noticeable shifts for an application was to the official Facebook app, which jumped straight to the number 1 spot in the free chart after hovering between 10th and 20th for the last year. Other popular apps, such as Netflix and Pandora, also jumped up the chart after the adjustment.

In an internal memo to its employees, Apple has announced the end of its iWork and MobileMe rebate programs with effect from close of business on April 18th. The rebate programs allowed customers to save $30 on MobileMe when purchasing a new Mac or iPad, and $30 on iWork when purchasing a new Mac.

The termination of these programs follows reports that Apple is set to revamp its MobileMe service over the coming months. A new MobileMe service, said to feature a digital “music locker” for streaming content from the cloud to Apple devices – as well as the “Media Stream” and “Find my Friends” features – is rumored to launch either later this month or at WWDC in June.

Though it’s not clear why iWork was also cut from the rebate program, it’s believed this is simply due to the release of iWork 2011 later this year. I think the the Mac App Store could also play a part in this: if Apple has decided to offer future iWork releases exclusively through the App Store as separate purchases, there may be a new way for customers to claim rebates – such as promo codes – or no rebates at all.

[via 9to5 Mac]

Look. Summer’s right around the corner, and odds are, you’re still wearing some swag-tee you got at Macworld circa ’00, no? Why not wrap your torso in this super-soft “Mac I’d Like to Friend” Cult of Mac (CoM) tee, instead? They’re limited edition, hipster-approved, and guaranteed to get you unexpected high-fives from dodgy-looking street strangers.

Our new CoM tees are 100% cotton, and 100% designed, forged, and hewn in the fires of Mount U.S.A. They’re also available now over at MightTees.com, creators of fine indie-art inspired graphic tees.

Three weeks after its launch, the iPad 2 is still incredibly hard to obtain for some – while Chinese campers in New York City continue to sleep outside Apple Stores in order to make a quick buck reselling the device in their home country. A New York Times report reveals that some are making up to $400 a day.

Nick Bilton writes:

On Wednesday morning I stopped by the SoHo Apple store in New York City to purchase an iPad for a family member. As I had anticipated, a store clerk said they were out of stock and recommended that I check back the following morning. When I asked what time I should arrive, the clerk hesitated, looked around as if about to tell me a secret and said: “Well, do you see that group of people outside? They’re already here waiting for tomorrow’s shipment of iPads.”

I looked, and saw that outside the store sat a small group of Chinese men and women ready with camping chairs and apparently all the time in the world, preparing for a chilly night on New York’s streets as they waited to buy the iPad 2.

Bilton attempted to interview some of the campers outside the SoHo store, but most refused to answer his questions.

This kind of scheme has recently proven to be a popular money maker with Apple’s latest gadgets – with resellers exporting the iPhone all over the world after its launch and earning a tidy profit with each sale. However, due to the high demand of the iPad 2 and the struggle many are experiencing in trying to obtain the device, resellers are now becoming a huge frustration to genuine customers.

[via 9to5 Mac]

I tried to look up something this Sunday morning on Apple’s Discussion Forums and they were down. Now fast forward to this evening after all the obligatory Sunday events and the sites back up along with a big surprise.  Apple has launched Apple Support Communities. The site is back up in a big way.

Apple Support Communities are a revised version of Apple’s popular discussion forums. The site now makes it easier for Mac, Mac OS X, iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and iOS users to find answers to problems or questions they might have.