Apple

For this upcoming holiday season, Apple will be celebrating with a front Apple Store window display that several Apple Retail employees have described as spectacular. A photo of the display, sent in by a source, is above. The display highlights both the iPad Air and iPhone 5c and is made up of several LED lights shaped into snow flakes. The design is simple, but unique and impressive…

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According to Israeli publication Calcalist.co.il, Apple has purchased PrimeSense, the company behind the original Microsoft Kinect’s technology somewhere near a valuation in the $345M range. According to the report, a delegation of PrimeSense senior executives visited Apple’s engineering offices in recent days. The purchase would bolster Apple’s living room TV interface offerings and allow Apple to add controls with body movements and hand gestures to its products.

Calcalist reported in July that Apple was mulling a purchase for somewhere in the neighborhood of $280M.  PrimeSense had issued a denial that it was in talks to be bought by Apple. As we know with past history surrounding these type of matters, company denials don’t often mean much in the grand scheme of things.

Apple purchased Israeli Flash chip optimization company Anobit in late 2011 for $400M+, also originally reported by Calcalist. The company now functions as one of Apple’s R&D centers in-country…
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Customers entering an Apple Store (<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/klingon65/3840822757/in/photolist-6RpdN2-6RtfAW-6RJAHC-6TMNPK-6YaK9g-72ym3y-72ym69-76vgUH-76zcSC-7a46eP-7a46j2-7a46rZ-7a46vV-7a7VFJ-7bk1Cx-7dWBrd-7ebgkw-7fwqc8-7hjdSo-7pJoH8-7pJryH-7pNgDU-7pNhNW-7pNkxW-7rwhLM-7sVwEs-7tYcdD-bqqpoE-bqqqXs-bqqq3L-bDkiMB-bqqqwu-8gRXYQ-dDbgNk-crXJFW-dLxppW-co1G8N-dFMpEd-9SH1T9-bQrD92-aVVDhv-8gRXQC-8gRXR7-8gRXU7-8gNFZz-8gNFZV-8gRXSb-8gNG26-8gNG2H-8gRXTw-8gRXSw/">Photo by Gary Burke</a>)

iOS 7’s flashy launch earlier this year overshadowed a breakthrough new feature: iBeacons, a location-based technology with profound implications for industries such as retail. An iBeacon system could allow a store to install transmitters that would wirelessly connect to an iPhone and tell the phone its location with respect to items on shelves. This iPhone could then perform additional functionality if it is equipped with a specialized application. According to multiple sources, Apple is planning to soon enable just that in its retail stores…
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Today, Apple has provided the first seed of the upcoming OS X Mavericks 10.9.1 to registered developers. We previously reported that Apple had seeded the 10.9.1 update to its employees along with a future 10.9.2 release. It’s currently unclear when those operating systems will reach the Macs of customers. Apple asks developers to focus on Mail, Graphics Drivers, and VoiceOver in their testing. Apple previously seeded an update to customers to fix Mavericks Mail problems. The 10.9.1 seed is labeled as build 13B27.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVukJXI5NXM]

After much anticipation, Google finally released its native Google Play Music app for iOS today. The All Access and Radio service was originally announced at Google IO in May with the promise that it would be ported to iOS devices a few weeks later. Then it was rumored last month. Well, today it is really here and Google was nice enough to give us a great look at the service yesterday (video above).

Google’s music ecosystem differs greatly from Apple’s and more closely resembles Spotify or Amazon with a focus on the Cloud. On Macs and PCs you can use it through a browser with an interface that is remarkably robust for a webpage, but obviously not quite as responsive as iTunes, especially with local music.

Play millions of songs, instantly, on any device, including all the music you’ve ever bought…from anywhere.

Google’s Music is in the Cloud (mostly) so you can seamlessly move from device to device, though there is a 5 app limit (but no limit on devices with web browser access). You can upload 20,000 songs for free, create playlists and share with friends, listen to your music anywhere there is a web browser or iOS/Android device. Kind of a no-brainer…
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Total revenue from all Android tablets combined has for the first time exceeded Apple’s revenue for its iPad sales, according to IDC data crunched by Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty.

“For the first time,” she wrote in a note to clients Friday, “Android devices accounted for a greater share of the market in revenue terms than iOS. Android revenue share reached 46.2% in 3Q13, for the first time exceeding iPad share of 45.6%. Android’s unit share grew to 66.7% from 58.5% a year ago, largely driven by Samsung and Lenovo, while iPad share declined to 29.7% from 40.2%” … 
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A Retina display may have been some time coming on the iPad mini, but the general verdict appears to be that it was worth the wait.

Many are querying the price, especially now that the full-size iPad Air is so much smaller and lighter than its predecessors, and costs just $100 more. But if portability is key, reviewers seem every bit as impressed by the iPad mini as I was by the Air.

Read on for the conclusions from five early reviews … 
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Phil Schiller’s real testimony in the Apple v. Samsung damages trial will come later today, but he put the importance of the iPhone into perspective in his opening remarks yesterday by stating that Apple “bet the company” on it (via CNET).

There were huge risks [with the first iPhone]. We had a saying inside the company that it was a ‘bet-the-company’ product […] We were starting to do well again in iPod […] Then here we’re going to invest all these resources, financial as well as people, in creating this product … 
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For fans of books about Apple, this is a epic time. Earlier this week, Fred Vogelstein’s book Dogfight went on sale, and today, Leander Kahney’s The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products book about Apple Senior Vice President of Industrial Design Jony Ive went on sale.

Dogfight focuses on the emergence of both Apple and Google as the world’s two preeminent technology companies, and it details the competition of the two companies and the respective product development cycles of early iPhones and iPads and devices running Android. The book provides first-hand accounts of life working under Steve Jobs, and details the incredible run-up to the launch of the first iPhone in early 2007…

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This morning, Apple has released iOS 7.0.4 for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The update is a bug fix release with improvements. Apple notes that the update includes a fix for FaceTime calls that could fail for some users. The update is available over-the-air via the Software Update section in the iOS Settings app…

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Companies that specialise in buying and selling used iPhones are reporting that the methods they use to unlock handsets to allow them to be used on any compatible network are no longer working for AT&T models.

AT&T models are in greatest demand for companies reselling iPhones overseas, as the frequencies used are compatible with many foreign networks. But the WSJ says that something changed early in October, and no solution has been found since then. One reseller, run by Louis Ashner, says it is being forced to close.

“The market is gone,” Mr. Ashner said, who said he was on track for $1 million in revenue this year. “We are closing up.”

Business owners throughout the U.S. used-smartphone market are reporting the same problem, and like Mr. Ashner none of them knows exactly what went wrong. Whatever changed, AT&T appears to be at the center of it … 
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After a judge in March invalidated almost half of the $1B verdict Apple won in its patent infringement case against Samsung in August of 2012, another trial would have to take place to determine how much Samsung would actually owe. It still owes Apple the other approximately $600 million in damages pending an appeal, but today the two companies are in court for a retrial to determine how much of the other roughly $400 million in damages Samsung will be responsible for. CNET reports that Apple’s attorney today told the court it wants $380 million in damages from Samsung, slightly less than the original $410 million in vacated damages:

“We will hear a lot from Samsung, saying no one would have purchased Apple products,” McElhinny said. “But in its heart, Samsung knew it was a two-horse race.”

He pointed to an internal Samsung document as “conclusive evidence Apple lost sales because of Samsung.”

“In a fair fight, that money should have gone to Apple,” McElhinny said.

The $380 million number comes from Apple’s calculations of around $114 million in lost profits, $231 in Samsung’s profits, and $35 million in royalties. Apple says Samsung made around $3.5 billion revenue selling 10.7 million infringing devices.
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