Report: Apple continues lead as top smartphone vendor in U.S. during April

Jordan Kahn

ComScore today reported its numbers for smartphone subscribers in the U.S. for the three month period ending in April with Apple experiencing the biggest gains in both categories. The main theme of the report is much the same as we heard in its January and February reports– Apple is up and gaining at the expense of Google and just about everyone else.

When it comes to market share by platform, comScore reports that Google continues its lead with 52.3% (down 0.3 percent since the January quarter), while Apple experienced a slight gain of 1.4 percentage points increasing from 37.8% to 39.2%. That’s compared to BlackBerry at just 5.1% (down from 5.9% last quarter) and 3.0% for Microsoft (down from 3.1%).

Apple also captured the biggest gain for smartphone subscribers by OEM, positioning itself as the No.1 smartphone vendor in the U.S. with 39.2% of the market compared to Samsung’s 22% during the three month period. Filling out the final three positions is HTC, Motorola, and LG: Read more

Apple hiring software engineers to work on fingerprint tech at Authentec’s Melbourne Design Center?

Jordan Kahn

Fingerprint-scannerA new job listing on Apple.com could add fire to the rumors that Apple is considering including fingerprint technology in upcoming devices.

The job posting seeking a software engineer to write “low-level code to configure and control hardware” is the only listing on Apple’s site located at the “Melbourne Design Center” in Melbourne, Florida. Not only is the position looking for someone familiar with testing various sensors with LabTool and FA software, but Melbourne is also the home base of Authentec, the company Apple acquired fingerprint technology from last year for around $365 million.  Read more

Who has the most patents? Apple sues despite smaller patent portfolio

Jordan Kahn

It’s no secret patent-related legal disputes have become the subject of most media coverage lately…Whether it’s Apple halting sales of Samsung’s tablets, HTC going after Apple, or Google snatching up Motorola to beef up their patent portfolio, it’s clear the company with the most patents will have an advantage over others in the legal proceedings that we’re bound to continue encountering down the road. This is why we’re intrigued by the graphic above (via GigaOM) from mobile analyst Chetan Sharma charting the number of issued patents (in the US and Europe) between 1993 and 2011.

While these estimates of mobile communications related patents don’t take the quality of patents into account (which is obviously a huge factor in determining their long-term value), you can see from the breakdown below that Nokia and Samsung top the list, with the other expected players including IBM, Microsoft, Sony, Motorola, and Intel following.

Noticeably far down the list is Apple, the one company who seems to have had more success than others fighting patent-related issues recently. Again, these numbers in no way represent the quality of patents and the ability for companies to protect their IPs in the courtroom… which is also a good indication that perhaps we should be looking more closely at the quality of patents rather than the sheer number.

Recently patent expert Florian Mueller took to Twitter following the Google/Motorola acquisition saying he“would caution everyone against overestimating the strength of Motorola Mobility’s patent portfolio,”  he continued, “Apple and Microsoft sued Motorola Mobility anyway”. Remember kids… all patents aren’t created equally.
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