9to5 Staff

The UK trade regulator is launching an investigation into alleged anti-competitive price-fixing deals within the nascent digital book publishing industry following a “significant number of complaints.”

The Office of Fair Trading said the investigation is “into whether arrangements that certain publishers have put in place with some retailers for the sale of e-books may breach competition rules”.
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Google has introduced Google Shopper for iPhone, making the free App available for download via Apple’s App Store.

The App is a shopping assistant for iPhone. It makes it easy for you to:
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Anyone else out there notice that iOS and OS X new version updates are shipping around once a week now? With this kind of intensity can a release be far off? Don’t think so.

The latest Mac OS X 10.6.7 Build 10J850 is being seeded to developers for testing. Apple wants developers to focus their testing on the Mac App Store, AirPort, Bonjour, SMB, and Graphics Drivers. There’s no known problems.
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You know all that AT&T moaning where the company said it had a great network but accused iPhone users of being “data hogs” as an explanation for network patchiness? Well, it seems the company may have been telling some fibs, and there’s a new lawsuit in town that seeks to prove it.

“AT&T has ‘systematically’ overcharged iPhone and iPad owners with capped data plans by inflating the amount of data they download and adding ‘phantom traffic,’
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Apple’s iPad and iPhone have transformed the fortunes of chip designer, ARM, but the company is keeping quiet on the extent and significance of Apple’s business on its overall profit explosion.

Ask anyone involved in Apple’s mobile device supply chain how their business is performing and they’ll smile broadly. Ask any of them just how much of a contribution their AAPL business makes, and the smile will weaken and your source will clam-up.

Apple’s partners know that if they want to keep on sucking on the Cupertino money machine they need to keep the details quiet. So ARM’s news of a record-breaking quarter this morning is no surprise — though details are scant on the iDevice front — as we also know AAPL is prepping for a huge rise in sales this year.
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Mobile device users are acquiring ever more discretion about the Apps they use, with 26 percent of Apps only ever getting used once after being downloaded.

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Android sales, they say, are skyrocketing, taking marketshare away from the iPad. Except — for all the Android-powered slates you see around the electronics retailers, how many of your friends have one? One, a couple, none? I’m betting none based on statements today from a senior Samsung suit who said that while sales to retail channels are pretty good, actual sales to, you know, consumers — they’re small, “quite small“.
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COMPUTERWORLD: The iPhone ‘iWallet’ becomes even more real today as Visa Europe launches the first commercial deployment of its own iPhone payments App today. This news as NFC-capable iPhones should show later this year, with AAPL apparently pondering ways to offer a merchants cheap and easy set-up for payment kiosks — mobile payments are nothing without the infrastructure to accept them.

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If you can’t build an ecosystem, then buy one — that at least looks like the deal as it seems Google’s hiring in Android developers in its attempt to put apps up for sale in its Market; in related news Android tablets have grabbed a slice of the iPad market even while Android has become the world’s leading smartphone maker, according to Canalsys.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf9QO6g48eg&w=640&h=385]

Listen up folks, ActiveStorage has introduced ActiveSAN, a metadata controller appliance that incorporates ‘stunning’ Active Storage product design and the rock-solid performance, and as we said it is good for XSAN and StorNext networks…and it won’t clash with your ‘legacy’ Xserve array.
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Ming-Chi Kuo of Concord Securities released a note to investors today detailing his ideas on the iPad 2’s components. The analyst seems to agree with 9to5mac‘s findings in the SDK and is claiming the iPad 2 will keep the iPad 1’s 1024 x 768 display, but will introduce some improvements like a thinner panel and Kindle-like anti-reflection. This new screen should put commercials like this from Amazon to shame.

The report also claims the new iPad will sport a dual-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A9 processor. This new processor will likely be dubbed the A5, according to various reports. In terms of graphics processors, the iPad 2 will  utilize the SGX543 as our SDK findings would also tell you. The report also states there will be three different connectivity options: WiFi-only, GSM, and CDMA. This corroborates with three versions of iPad 2 we found in the SDK: K93, K94, and K95.

Finally, the report backs up our SDK findings and claims the iPad 2 will gain a front-facing and a back-facing camera. The front is said to be a 0.3 megapixel VGA shooter, and the back is said to be a 1 megapixel lens.

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COMPUTERWORLD: Apple and Samsung are old frenemies. The last thing Samsung wants to do is damage Apple’s ‘iBusiness’, despite the popularity of its own Android-powered Galaxy range. Samsung will this year quadruple the number of advanced mobile processors it sells to Apple — handing over half its manufacturing output to Cupertino’s ascendant iOS family.

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Brrrr! It’s really, really cold at the moment for a lot of us, isn’t it? Any of you noticed any sluggishness when using your iPhone? You know — because it doesn’t work so well at under zero degrees? Well, now it seems Finland’s Consumer Agency thinks this means users are entitled to their money back.
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If you’ve been expecting a massive rush to leave AT&T for Verizon, then think again — customers on Apple’s formerly exclusive iPhone network may not be completely satisfied, but they are pretty much locked-in — at least, 90 percent of them are.
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Apple’s iPhone is driving the mobile industry forward. Where Apple steps, competitors very soon follow. A decision by Apple to adopt a specific technology inside a product soon translates into a rush to secure that specific component. From SSD flash storage to touchscreens we’ve seen the followers take their place. And it seems the same for gyroscopes, movement sensors and other microelectromechanical system (MEMS) devices, where Apple’s decision to put these inside its products has driven a fast market expansion.

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The iPod classic could see capacity climb 60GB to 220GB following Toshiba’s introduction this week of a new 1.8-inch drive capable of offering that much capacity. That’s enough for 55,000 songs, 275 hours of video or over 34,000 photos.
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COMPUTERWORLD: Apple’s iPhone marketshare gains are slowing down in the face of increased competition from Android handsets, Strategy Analytics claims in its quarterly market analysis. “Apple’s marketshare gains slowed considerably last year due to tougher competition from Android players such as Samsung, Motorola and HTC,” the analysts wrote, but with iPhone 5 looming, can Apple grow its growth curve?

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Nokia is feeling the heat with rumors the company will enable support for Android apps on future devices. Company CEO, ex-Microsoft Stephen Elop described “significant challenges” fighting Apple’s iPhone and the Google OS in the market. Shares fell 8.7 percent in reponse.

“Nokia faces some significant challenges in our competitiveness and our execution,” Elop said in the company’s earnings statement today. “The industry changed and now it’s time for Nokia to change faster.”

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Apple’s “hobby” is less of a hobby these days, with in excess of one million sales the Apple TV is now accounting for more Netflix viewing hours than the iPad, Netflix announced this week.

That’s noteworthy because while Apple has sold millions of iPads it has only shifted a million Netflix-happy Apple TVs, and with a substantial slice of those sold outside of the US of A, you can bet your dollar this represents tacit proof that people are making active use of the Apple TV.
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Here’s an interesting infographic from Onswipe telling us all about the first year of the iPad — Happy Birthday iPad (introduced this day last year). Hit read more to see the whole thing…
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COMPUTERWORLD: Apps sales are exploding while the distinction between mobile and desktop Apps will shrink when Apple gives Lion a healthy iOS habit. Developers are on a gravy train, even teenagers are making cash using skills many don’t have time to learn. “If only getting started in App development were as simple as making a WordPress Website,” some might cry. Cry no more. Red Foundry promises to make it so.

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