Samsung

In what feels like a never-ending patent battle, the Department of Justice today filed an amicus brief regarding the ongoing case between Apple and Samsung. Back in December, it was announced that Apple and Samsung had reached a $548 million settlement, but shortly after that Samsung asked that Supreme Court hear an appeal of its case, saying that the lower courts misapplied the design patent law. Apple then asked the Supreme Court not to hear the appeal and argued that the case was closed, but in March the Supreme Court agreed to hear Samsung’s appeal over the case.

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We can usually get a decent idea of what the insides of an upcoming Mac will look like thanks to announcements from part manufacturers. A report last week detailed some of the changes that Apple has planned for its MacBook Pro refresh in the fourth quarter of this year and now Intel and Samsung have both made announcements that could offer a glimpse into what else Apple will introduce…

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iPhone concept: Yasser Farahi/Ovalpicture

With most reports now agreeing that Apple will switch to OLED displays in iPhones in either 2017 or 2018 (but no consensus yet on which of the two years), UBI Research has now added fuel to the idea that not all models will benefit from the new screen technology.

The Korea Herald reports the firm’s president and chief analyst suggesting numbers that indicate a gradual rollout across models.

Lee Choong-hoon predicted an OLED iPhone with a curved screen would debut in 2018, saying OLED models would make up 30 percent or 100 million units of total iPhone shipments in the year and the figure could surge to 80 percent by 2020.

While the 30% figure could be explained by Apple launching its new iPhones late in the year, the ‘80% by 2020’ number would mean Apple continuing to manufacture some new models with the older IPS LCD screen tech for some time to come …

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In the middle of seemingly stalling profits and a general slowdown of the smartphone industry — like Apple‘s notable first quarter of YoY growth drop in years — Samsung seems to be enjoying a moment of sunshine bathing.

Eleven months after losing the leadership to the Cupertino giant, the Korean manufacturer has climbed once again to the top of the US vendors’ list, as per a Counterpoint Research report (via Business Korea)…

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According to a new report from the Korean Herald, Samsung and Apple have reached a deal in which Samsung will supply around 100 million OLED display units to Apple beginning in 2017. The report comes as several other sources have stated that Apple plans to make the switch to OLED panels beginning next year.

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It’s been a year and a half since iFixit tore into the flagship 9.7-inch tablet from Apple, and now it’s finally time to look inside the smaller iPad Pro and see what it’s really made of. What you’ll find is your typical mix of components from Samsung, Bosch Sensortec, NXP Semiconductors, and others, plus a whole lot of battery. Cutting to the chase, iFixit rates the smaller iPad Pro’s repairability at a low 2 out of 10, which is the same as the iPad Air 2 it replaces but one point below what it rated the 12.9-inch iPad Pro last year. Here’s what’s inside the 9.7-inch iPad Pro and why iFixit says it’s not so repairable…

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The endless patent battles between Apple and Samsung took an interesting turn this week when Apple claimed that the most recent court ruling violated the Seventh Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: the right to trial by jury.

Back in 2014, Apple was awarded $119.6M when Samsung was found to have violated three of the five patents in dispute. That award was overturned last month when an appeals court ruled that Samsung didn’t infringe one of the three patents, and declared the other two invalid.

The problem, explains Reuters, is that the appellate court didn’t just refer to the trial court record in reaching its conclusions, it also considered new evidence …

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The never-ending battle between Apple and Samsung over an alleged design patent violation is going all the way to the Supreme Court. Apple previously formally requested that the Supreme Court not grant the case a hearing, but the decision to hear the case was issued this morning.

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Apple and the FBI are set to start its court battle for the San Bernardino case in a couple of weeks, March 22nd. In support for Apple’s position, over 40 companies, organizations and individuals will file amicus briefs later today to rally against the government order for Apple to compromise its own iPhone security measures. Facebook, Google, Dropbox, Microsoft, Snapchat and more will sign on to briefs in the case, according to sources.

Via The New York Times, support was not immediate. Company execs were initially worried about the consequences on the industry if Apple lost out to the FBI. Bloomberg reports Samsung supports the idea of encryption but will not commit to file an amicus brief for its smartphone rival, the Samsung statement said it remains undecided on its court position …

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An appeals court on Friday overturned a ruling that would have forced Samsung to pay $120 million in damages to Apple for patent infringement, reports Reuters. In this specific case, one of several patent battles between the two companies, Apple claimed that Samsung infringed on its “quick links” patent.

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It’s Mobile World Congress this week in Barcelona, which means most of Apple’s competitors are unveiling their upcoming smartphone lineups that will inevitably compete with Apple’s own 2016 lineup.

But while we usually have to wait until the fall for a new iPhone from Apple, this year is different in that Apple’s event planned for early next month will likely see it unveil the much anticipated iPhone 5se, a rare non-flagship and mid-year iPhone upgrade that will be a low to mid-tier smartphone competitor at pricing that will take over the current iPhone 5s lineup around $450 off contract. 

Among the announcements: Samsung has officially announced its Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge smartphones — both with a similar premium metal and glass design as previous generations but with upgraded internals — while LG showed off its all-new metal modular design for its new flagship LG G5. Also on show this week is a new smartphone flagship from Acer that offers an impressive 1TB of hybrid local/cloud storage, HTC’s One X9, and a trio of Xperia X smartphones from Sony, two with high camera specs including predictive focus.

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A Bloomberg profile of Apple’s ‘chief chipmaker’ – SVP of hardware technologies Johny Srouji – talks about how the iPad Pro was launched behind schedule, and almost ended up being less powerful than the iPhone 6s.

The original plan was to introduce the iPad Pro with Apple’s tablet chip, the A8X, the same processor that powered the iPad Air 2, introduced in 2014. But delaying until fall meant that the Pro would make its debut alongside the iPhone 6s, which was going to use a newer, faster phone chip called the A9 […]

The iPad Pro would look feeble next to the iPhone 6s. So Srouji put his engineers on a crash program to move up the rollout of a new tablet processor, the A9X, by half a year.

While the piece predictably doesn’t reveal much we didn’t already know, it does contain one surprising fun fact about the original iPhone …

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Apple chipmaker TSMC said that the earthquake that hit southern Taiwan earlier this month caused damage that will impact production, but has not yet given a clear indication of the scale of the problem. The company is one of two chip fabricators for the iPhone 6s, and is expected to be the sole manufacturer of the A10 chip for the iPhone 7.

The 6.4-magnitude earthquake on February 6 killed 116 people and injured many more, with significant damage also caused to manufacturing facilities …

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According to a report from South Korean news outlet The Electronic Times, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, better known as TSMC, has reached a deal with Apple to be the sole provider of the processor used in the next-generation iPhone. TSMC and Samsung shared the task of building the processors for the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.

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In the patent battle that feels as if it will never end, Apple has today asked the Supreme Court not to review Samsung’s latest appeals request in the two companies’ ongoing patent feud. Back in December, it was announced that Apple and Samsung had reached a $548 million settlement, but with a catch. Samsung said in its part of the agreement that it reserved the right to reclaim reimbursement should any position of the trial be modified…

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We learned this week that Apple shipped 74.8 million iPhones globally during the recent holiday quarter, which is just slightly up from the 74.4 million shipped during the same quarter the year prior and just under the 75 million that analysts expected.

Today Strategy Analytics has released new data showing how Apple’s last two years of shipments compare to competitors like Samsung and Huawei. The data also breaks down how Apple’s global smartphone marketshare stacks up to those same competitors.

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Apple has finally managed to secure a sales ban over some Samsung phone features that infringe on its patents and intellectual property. However, the victory is effectively meaningless despite the milestone in its continuing patent litigation suit with Samsung in ever-longer court battles.

Apple’s ban resides over three features encumbered by its patents: the controversial ‘slide to unlock’ patent, predictive text technology and autocorrect. Getting a ban is a huge symbolic achievement, but the effect it will have on day-to-day business of the two companies is minor. The ban is effectively useless as FOSS Patents explains …

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