FOSS Patents discovered that while Apple was asking a court to sanction Samsung for using confidential information about a patent deal between the Cupertino company and Nokia, Apple inadvertently made the very same information public.
As part of a patent dispute between Apple and Samsung, Apple was required to share the terms of the patent licensing deal with Samsung’s lawyers, Quinn Emanuel. The agreement was that the documents – marked Highly Confidential – Attorneys’ Eyes Only – would only be viewed by the lawyers. Instead, Quinn Emanuel passed them onto Samsung execs, who allegedly used the information as ammunition in the company’s own patent negotiations with Apple … Expand Expanding Close
A German court has dismissed a $2B patent claim by IPCom against Apple for use of a standard which is a mandatory feature in all cellphones. As we reported earlier this month:
The chip is used to identify mobile phones used by the emergency services in order to give them priority access to networks when they are heavily congested, such as during a major disaster. Carriers can set their networks to block access to all phones in the vicinity of a major emergency other than those identifying themselves as belonging to police and rescue workers. The chip can be included in the circuitry of either a phone or a SIM.
IPCom claimed a patent on the technology, but Germany’s Mannheim Regional Court dismissed the claim, along with a similar one against HTC.
This is, however, unlikely to be the end of it. IPCom has a record of appealing such rulings, and attempting to charge for patents purchased from other companies is its primary source of revenue. The company owns more than a thousand mobile-related patents.
Demands from patent trolls – companies that invent nothing, but simply buy up patents in order to demand cash – are just a fact of life for any large company, and Apple doubtless receives hundreds of them each year. Some are, however, audacious than others.
The WSJ reports that German patent troll IPCom is demanding €1.57B ($2.12B) for use technology that is not only used in every mobile phone on the market, its use is required by law.
The chip is used to identify mobile phones used by the emergency services in order to give them priority access to networks when they are heavily congested, such as during a major disaster. Carriers can set their networks to block access to all phones in the vicinity of a major emergency other than those identifying themselves as belonging to police and rescue workers. The chip can be included in the circuitry of either a phone or a SIM.
Apple, Google, HTC, Ericsson and Vodafone had all asked the European Patent Office to declare the patent invalid, as it was part of a required standard. The EPO turned down this request after IPCom said that it had successfully sued other companies, including Nokia.
The case is now going to court, and will be heard on 11th February.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiyIcz7wUH0] Apple certainly isn’t shying away from using the iPad as a camera anymore.
Airing today is a brand-new TV advertisement touting the abilities of the iPad. The ad is in a serious tone and is voiced over by a quote from the film Dead Poet’s Society. Re/Code has the text from the advertisement:
We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering — these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love — these are what we stay alive for.
To quote from Whitman,
“O me, O life of the questions of these recurring.
Of the endless trains of the faithless. Of cities filled with the foolish. What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer: that you are here. That life exists and identity. That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”
“That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”
What will your verse be?
To go along with the TV ad, Apple has also posted a new webpage with the ad’s theme. This new page shares stories of the iPad being used in film-making, sports, and education. Original from movie below:
If you were wondering why Nokia’s HERE maps app for iOS disappeared from the App Store earlier this month, today the company has issued an official statement on the situation. While citing issues with iOS 7 that “harm the user experience,” Nokia unfortunately does not go into detail about specific problems with the development of the app for Apple’s latest version of iOS. It does, however, point users to the official web app, which is essentially the same experience the company wrapped into the iOS app minus many of the bugs users reported with the release of an iOS 7 update. No word on if Nokia will bring back the native app at any point, but for now we get the following statement issued to the TheIndianExpress (via Engadget):
“We have made the decision to remove our HERE Maps app from the Apple App Store because recent changes to iOS 7 harm the user experience. iPhone users can continue to use the mobile web version of HERE Maps under m.here.com., offering them core location needs, such as search, routing, orientation, transit information and more, all completely free of charge.”
There’s been no shortage of debate regarding Apple’s latest holiday commercial as some have found it inspiring and emotional as others find it ridiculous and lacking a clear message. There will be debate in the coming weeks over Apple’s intentions with the message and whether or not they succeeded in tugging at our heartstrings. That being said, Apple looks like a gem, an angel, a bright light on a dark road compared to Nokia’s newest ad for the Lumia 2520. It’s true that Apple may have paused its traditional product-first advertising angle and replaced it with an arguably emotional holiday spot for the iPhone 5s, but it works leaps and bounds better than Nokia’s latest embarrassing excuse for advertising.
Smartphones will reach saturation point in the U.S. by 2017, and by that time two-thirds of all Americans will own an iPhone – the conclusions Asymco’s Horace Dediu reaches through a series of calculations.
Dediu bases his calculation on three factors. First, that the rate of growth seen in the smartphone market so far will continue at the same pace. Second, saturation point for smartphones will be 90 percent (no technology ever achieves 100 percent). Third, that Apple’s market share will remain roughly constant, Dediu pointing out that iPhone growth has pretty much exactly mirrored the smartphone market as a whole … Expand Expanding Close
It’ll come as no surprise that Nokia and its friends at Microsoft love to take cheap shots at the iPad and Apple products in general. This time around, a gentleman who just picked up a new tablet for working on the go visits friends at the coffee shop and shows off his new purchase…
Apple has made it clear that it isn’t going to get into the megapixel race with the likes of Nokia and Sony when it comes to the camera system used in its iPhones. The new iPhone 5s has the same 8-megapixel shooter as previous generations, but Apple is touting a brand new camera system for the device that includes a new five-element lens designed by Apple, a F2.2 aperture, a sensor with a 15 percent larger active area, auto stabilization, and bigger 1.5 micron pixels. However, the big new standout feature for the camera is a dual LED “True Tone” flash that should vastly improve shooting in poor lighting conditions. The real question is, how does Apple’s new camera system in the 5s stack up against some of the best smartphone cameras in the game: That’s the 41 megapixel PureView camera in the Nokia Lumia 1020, and the 20.7 megapixel camera with Sony Exmor RS mobile image sensor packed into the Sony Xperia Z1.
Recombu put together the comparison above which shows how the three cameras perform under the same nighttime lighting conditions for a portrait. We’ll let you decide, but, as the site points out, the iPhone 5s seems to do a much better job of producing accurate colors:
Admitedly, the dual-LEDs can’t rival the illuminating clout of the Nokia Lumia 1020’s Xenon flash, but with its combi warm and cool LEDs, the 5S clearly delivers a significantly more accurate shot – just look at the white canopies!
While everyone was expecting Apple to introduce its new colourful iPhone 5c as a “lower-cost” option, Nokia today announced a truly low-cost device with its new $29 Nokia 108.
The silicone rubber case is lined with microfiber on the inside, and includes Sleep/Wake and volume button protection. It’s quite light, with the empty space left by a 5 x 7 grid of 5/16″ holes helping to keep the weight down, while also oddly exposing only portions of the iPhone 5c’s rear labeling.
Nokia’s camera phone does calls, text, video capture, and also includes an up to 32GB of memory, an MP3 player, FM radio, Snake the game, and battery life up to 31 days on standby. It also has colourful red, white, black, yellow and cyan back plates that can be removed and swapped for other colors.
Following today’s iPhone event where Apple unveiled its new colourful “lower-cost” iPhone 5c and the gold iPhone 5s with built-in fingerprint sensor, the competition is already weighing in on what it thinks about Apple’s upgraded smartphone lineup. Microsoft’s Windows Phone Twitter account sent out the tweet above with the headline “5 things Apple didn’t announce today” while promoting Nokia’s Lumia 1020’s 41MP camera.
So what are the five things Apple didn’t announce according to Microsoft? The company’s link takes us to an image of the Lumia 1020 highlighting some of the device’s features including the 4.5-inch AMOLED display, the ability to personalize the device’s start screen, a 41 megapixel sensor with a “reinvented zoom,” and the Nokia Pro Cam to “control shutter speed, focus, and white balance.” While Apple’s new iPhone 5s includes the same 8 megapixel camera as the iPhone 5, Apple has made some major improvements with the addition of a a dual LED true tone flash, a new five-element lens designed by Apple, a F2.2 aperture, a sensor with a 15 percent larger active area, auto stabilization, and bigger 1.5 micron pixels. It’s also added a burst mode that will continuously take photos a rate of 10fps, and the 120fps slow mo mode. The new flash specifically is meant to improve photos taken in low lightning conditions, something Nokia has focused on in past parody ads attacking the iPhone.
Microsoft isn’t the only one commenting on today’s announcement, as Nokia’s own account also sent out the tweet below noting that it did smartphones in various colors before the new iPhone 5c and joking that “Real gangsters don’t use gold phones.”
While Apple did pack some big shiny new hardware features into the iPhone 5s with a fingerprint scanner, much faster A7 processor, and the new “M7” motion co-processor chip, it’s yet to be seen if Apple’s upgrade will be viewed as a minor refresh by the average consumer. One thing is for sure, Apple’s competition will definitely be focusing on the fact that today’s iPhone upgrades did not include a higher megapixel camera or larger display.
Microsoft has just announced that they are purchasing Nokia’s devices and services divisions. Nokia has been the main manufacturer of Windows Phone 8 devices, and it looks like Microsoft will be using this acquisition to further merge their software and hardware engineering and design.
This is not a complete takeover, as Nokia will still be its own entity with its own patent portfolio. However, Microsoft will be granted a “10-year license” to Nokia’s patents.
The purchase is expected to close the first quarter of 2014 and will net Nokia EUR 5.44 billion (~$7.1 billion).
Some interesting tidbits from the announcement:
“At closing, approximately 32,000 people are expected to transfer to Microsoft, including 4,700 people in Finland and 18,300 employees directly involved in manufacturing, assembly and packaging of products worldwide.”
“Microsoft is acquiring Nokia’s Smart Devices business unit, including the Lumia brand and products.”
Nokia includes a cameo of the iPhone 5 in its new theatrical and bizarre new ad highlighting its Lumia 925 with… zombies.
Flash photography tends to wash out faces in images so Nokia seems to think it can fix that problem, but the iPhone 5 already specializes in low-light photography, right?
I guess the clearer message here is Nokia’s marketshare has dwindled down to the last guy left on Earth.
According to a report from Reuters, Nokia has this week become the first company to submit an amicus brief in support of Apple’s attempt to secure injunctions on several Samsung products. While the full contents of the brief have not yet been revealed, Reuters reports Nokia argued its position in a summary of the brief that was filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington on Monday.
In an accompanying summary, however, Nokia argued that a trial court judge got it wrong when she denied Apple’s request for a permanent injunction.
In the filing on Monday, Nokia attorney Keith Broyles from Alston & Bird argued that U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, erred by ruling that Apple must establish a “causal nexus” between its patented feature and the demand for its phones in order to secure a permanent injunction.
Nokia argued that the rule “could cause wide-ranging damage to the United States patent protection landscape.”
Companies and advocacy groups will still be able to submit briefs on behalf of Samsung after the company’s written arguments in the coming weeks. Nokia said its decision to submit the brief is to “advocate for patent rights as a means of fostering innovation.” Expand Expanding Close
Web analytics firm StatCounter is out today with updated stats for the month of January 2013. When it comes to Internet usage, iPhone users this month held the No. 1 spot as Nokia experienced a significant decline during 2012. With Nokia’s share of mobile internet usage down 15.52-percent from 37.67-percent last January to just 22.15-percent this year, Apple was able to move into the No. 1 position for the first time despite experiencing a decline of 2.81-percent. Apple took 25.86-percent of mobile Internet usage in January, down from 28.67-percent last year. Nokia was also bumped to third position with Samsung gaining 7.85-percent to move into the No. 2 spot. However, it’s important to point out that StatCounter didn’t include iPads in its definition of mobile devices.
As for mobile OS, StatCounter has Android at 37 percent of the market in January up from 33.19-percent in December. In comparison, iPhone and iPod held 25.85-percent of the global OS share, up from 23.26-percent in December. Keeping in mind that StatCounter didn’t include iPads in these stats, we also looked a report for January from NetApplications (pictured below) that has iOS with iPads included at 60.56-percent of the market during the month: Expand Expanding Close
While Samsung has conveniently left specific smartphone sales numbers out of its Q4 earnings release yesterday (as usual), today we get a look at the latest estimates for the quarter coming from research firms Strategy Analytics and IDC.
We know that Apple sold 47.8 million iPhones during the quarter, and today both research firms put Samsung just over 63 million units for Q4 2012. That means Samsung was able to capture 29 percent of the market last quarter (up from 36.2 million units and 22.5-percent of the market in the year ago quarter). Apple is of course a close second among the top five smartphone vendors with 21.8-percent—down slightly from the 23 percent it held in the same quarter last year. In Q4 2011, Apple and Samsung were neck and neck at about 23 percent of the market each.
The increasing market share for Apple, and especially Samsung, over the past year comes at the expense of Nokia. It experienced a drop from 16 percent to 5 percent of the market during the past year. Expand Expanding Close
As promised, the folks at Nokia launched their alternative to Apple Maps for iOS: a new cross-platform solution called “Nokia Here”. Based off HTML 5, Here is now available on the iTunes App Store for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad this morning, offering users full map views, the ability to save maps for later viewing, coverage of 200 countries, search history, Facebook login integration, step-by-step voice-guided navigation for the car and walking, offline map viewing, and social features that allow users to share their location. Offline Maps only work with one-specific map area, as users are only able to download 10MB of mapping data for offline use. We’re giving the app a first run right now and will let you know our first impressions. In the mean time, the full list of features and a gallery are below: [App Store]
The WSJ wasn’t able to give specific time frame for the app’s launch, but the report added that the app has been distributed to a few members outside the bounds of Mountain View for testing before it is submitted to the iTunes App Store review team. The launch sounds like sooner than later, as several publications in the recent months have pegged the launch before the end of the year. The question is: will Apple accept it?
Google won’t be alone in the iOS Maps-alternative battleground, however. Nokia announced yesterday it plans to release its own iOS map solution under the “Here” brand. Nokia said it plans to make the app available on the iTunes App Store in the coming weeks, offering offline maps, voice-guided navigation, and information on public transport.
Worldwide Mobile Device Sales to End Users by Operating System in 3Q12
Gartner is out with its quarterly report for worldwide mobile device sales by vendor and OS for the third quarter. While reporting an overall 3 percent decline in mobile phone sales, the smartphone category hit 169.2 million units in Q3, a 47 percent increase from the year-ago quarter. While Apple is still third to Samsung and Nokia for total mobile device sales, Samsung and Apple remain the top smartphone vendors collectively, capturing 46.5-percent of the market. Meanwhile, Nokia slipped from No. 3 smartphone vendor in Q2 to No. 7 in Q3. This made room for RIM and HTC behind Apple and Samsung in the third and fourth positions.
With sales of 23.6 million units in the third quarter for Apple (up 36.2-percent year-on-year), Gartner reported Samsung widened its lead on Apple with almost 55 million smartphones in the quarter and strong demand for its Galaxy line. Samsung once again takes the top vendor position for smartphones with 32.5-percent of the market:
Samsung’s mobile phones sales continued to accelerate, totaling almost 98 million units in the third quarter of 2012 (see Table 1), up 18.6 percent year-on-year. Samsung saw strong demand for Galaxy smartphones across different price points, and it further widened the gap with Apple in the smartphone market, selling 55 million smartphones in the third quarter of 2012. It commanded 32.5 percent of the global smartphone market in the third quarter of 2012.
As for the race between Android and iOS, Gartner’s numbers show Android increased its marketshare nearly 20 percentage points in the quarter to 72.4-percent of the market, up from just 52.5-percent in the year-ago quarter. In comparison, Apple now accounts for 13.9-percent of the market, down from 15 percent last year, but Gartner expects that to change in Q4 thanks to the continuing iPhone 5 roll out: Expand Expanding Close
While a native Google Maps iOS app has yet to hit the App Store, Nokia said today it plans to release a new free maps for iOS under the “Here” brand in the coming weeks. “Here” is a cross platform effort for mapping applications that the company described as “the first location cloud to deliver the world’s best maps and location experiences across multiple screens and operating systems.”
San Francisco, California – Today Nokia introduced HERE, the first location cloud to deliver the world’s best maps and location experiences across multiple screens and operating systems. With the new brand, HERE, Nokia aims to inspire a new generation of location services and devices that make the mobile experience more personally significant for people everywhere… To further extend its location services, Nokia is launching a maps application for iOS under the HERE brand.
The new HTML5-based iOS app, also called “Here”, will arrive in the App Store in the coming weeks and feature “offline capabilities, voice-guided walk navigation, and public transport directions.” Expand Expanding Close
Update: While the meeting apparently didn’t result in any resolution, ZDnet reports the ITU’s Malcolm Johnson said the ‘heated debate’ “has gone a long way to help clarify the positions” of the companies involved:
“Today’s event has gone a long way to help clarify the positions of various stakeholders in determining the effectiveness of FRAND commitments and the impact of litigations surround standards-essential patents,”
ZDnet also reported Motorola argued “Apple was misunderstanding the way FRAND works in the telecoms industry”:
“For 20 years the [FRAND] licensing commitments made by innovators in the communications industry have been sufficient,” Warren said. “Past experience would indicate that [FRAND] has been effective… but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement to improve the present situation.”
The world’s biggest tech companies are meeting today for a Patent Roundtable with the United Nation’s International Telecommunications Union to “assess the effectiveness of RAND (reasonable and non-discriminatory) – based patent policies.” The meeting will take place at the ITU headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland; and according to several reports, it will include Apple, Samsung, Nokia, Google, Microsoft, and many of the industry’s other biggest players. The discussions follow high-profile, patent-related cases and failed settlement talks between Samsung and Apple, while the European Union continues to probe Motorola, Samsung, and others over potential abuse of the patent system. It also comes as Google’s legal chief David Drummond issued statements to the press calling for a reform on software patents.
A report from BBC noted others attending the roundtable include: Qualcomm, Cisco, Research in Motion, Intel, Philips, Huawei, Sony, and Hewlett-Packard. BBC also provided statements from the companies that submitted pre-event arguments (below).
According to the ITU, the meeting will have the following objective: Expand Expanding Close
Together, with HealthyStuff.org, our friends at iFixit have just completed a chemical analysis of 36 smartphones, including the iPhone 5 and previous generations of the device. Each device was ranked from 0 to 5 (with 0 being best) based on a number of common hazardous materials including lead, bromine, and mercury. In the image above, we see a breakdown on which components of the iPhone 5 have the highest concentration of those chemicals. The findings show Apple is making good in its commitment to greatly reduce harmful chemicals in its products, with the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 ranking significantly better than previous generations. For instance, the iPhone 2G lands itself at the bottom of the list with a “high concern”—not far from Nokia’s N95.
The iPhone 4S was able to outrank the iPhone 5; indicating Apple was not able to significantly reduce hazardous chemicals in the new device. However, all iPhone models were behind the Motorola Citrus—a device Motorola specifically markets as an eco-friendly option. While iPhone 4S came in second behind Citrus, the inexpensive LG Remarq and Samsung Captivate were able to beat out the iPhone 5. When it comes to Apples’ biggest competitors, such as Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S III and higher-end devices from HTC, the iPhone 4/4S/5 all outrank the competition.
As noted by iFixit, each year only about 8 percent of the 130 million discarded cellphones make it to proper recycling facilities. With Apple likely to build a 100 million new iPhones in the year to come, Apple’s commitment to make the “most environmentally responsible products in our industry” is certainly an important one.
iFixit explained the method used to rank the phones:
The former Google executive did offer high-end smartphones to most of its employees (if the memo BI received is legit) including the iPhone 5, three Androids and a Nokia Lumia Windows Phone. These are probably the top phones on the market today, and they will replace the BlackBerries that Yahoo! employees were given until this point.
The memo is below. Mayer was notorious for her use of Apple’s iPhone, even within the walls of Google.
We have a very exciting update to share with you today – we are announcing Yahoo! Smart Phones, Smart Fun! As of today, Yahoo is moving off of blackberries as our corporate phones and on to smartphones in 22 countries. A few weeks ago, we said that we would look into smartphone penetration rates globally and take those rates into account when deciding on corporate phones. Ideally, we’d like our employees to have devices similar to our users, so we can think and work as the majority of our users do.
Moving forward, we’ll offer you a choice of devices as well as provide monthly plans for the data and phone.
The smartphone choices that we are including in the program are:
* Apple iPhone 5
* Android:
– Samsung Galaxy S3
– HTC One X
– HTC EVO 4G LTE
* Windows Phone 8:
– Nokia Lumia 920
We’re getting started right away and taking orders starting now
Clearly, Yahoo will buy a lot of iPhone 5s for its employees if they truly have freewill in the decision.
In the lead up to Apple’s Sept. 12 media event, where most expect the next-generation iPhone to be unveiled, there are still some things —believe it or not— that we don’t know about the device. The new iPhone is rumored to sport a longer, four-inch display, a smaller dock connector, an overall thinner design, updated RAM, and other internal components. But we have not heard much about the camera, which is one of the most important parts of any smartphone.
There is some evidence that Apple has now centered the FaceTime camera, such as the next-generation iPhone backs that we posted in May, and Apple seems to be moving toward FaceTimeHD, but we also expect the device’s rear camera to receive an upgrade over the previous-generation iPhone 4S.
While the iPhone 4S introduced a redesigned 5 lens camera system with a new sensor and 8-megapixels, the game has definitely been stepped up with a number of camera-related product announcements from Sony, Nokia, Motorola and Samsung. If the next-generation iPhone’s camera is to keep its lead with the most recent devices announced by these manufacturers, Apple is likely planning an improved camera system for the ‘iPhone 5’. Expand Expanding Close
00
Manage push notifications
We would like to show you notifications for the latest news and updates.
You are subscribed to notifications
We would like to show you notifications for the latest news and updates.
.
