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872 'Samsung' stories September 2010 - May 2014
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iPhone market share in Japan climbs from a quarter to more than a third of all phones sold

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy May 14 2014 - 4:24 am PT
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Apple’s deal with Japan’s largest carrier, DoCoMo, saw the iPhone’s market share in the country climb from 25.5 percent last year to 36.6 percent in the year ending March of this year, reports Bloomberg. This full-year figure underestimates the current position, as it reflects only six months of sales through DoCoMo.

Japanese companies Sharp and Sony took second and third places, with 13 and 12.3 percent respectively, while Samsung was in sixth place at just 5.7 percent.

Apple’s market share in Japan hit almost 70 percent when the iPhone 5S and 5C were made available on DoCoMo, as pent up demand was first unleashed. Since then it settled back to just under 50 percent last quarter, and we’re likely to see a similar number in the full-year figures in six months time.

Apple plans to match Microsoft Surface with split-screen iPad multitasking in iOS 8

Avatar for Mark Gurman May 13 2014 - 6:30 am PT
120 Comments
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iOS 8 is likely to supercharge the functionality of Apple’s iPad with a new split-screen multitasking feature, according to sources with knowledge of the enhancement in development. These people say that the feature will allow iPad users to run and interact with two iPad applications at once. Up until now, each iPad application either developed by Apple or available on the App Store is only usable individually in a full-screen view.


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Detailed Space Gray iPhone 6 mockup compared to HTC One M8 and Samsung Galaxy S5 (4K video)

Avatar for Dom Esposito May 12 2014 - 5:16 pm PT
26 Comments

 

Based on all of the iPhone 6 dummy units we’ve seen, this rumored design closely resembles Apple’s fifth generation iPod touch, but that’s not all. As shown in the video below, the alleged iPhone 6 design looks very similar to another flagship smartphone released this year.

The HTC One M8 and iPhone 6 mockup look like cousins or long-lost brothers when it comes to their design. Of course there’s no confirmation that Apple is actually using this design for the iPhone 6, but almost all of these mockups have been manufactured based on “leaked” schematics and specifications.


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Despite court battles, Apple switches back to Samsung as main iPad display supplier

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy May 12 2014 - 4:05 am PT
4 Comments
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The court battles between the two companies doesn’t seem to have harmed Samsung’s position as a key supplier of components to Apple. DisplaySearch figures show that Apple switched from LG to Samsung as the primary supplier of its display panels for iPad Air and iPad with Retina display last quarter, reports CNET.

Samsung Display reclaimed its position as the top iPad display panel supplier, shipping 5.2 million units of 9.7-inch panels with a resolution of 2,048×1,536, accounting for 62 percent of total shipments of that display size and resolution […]

LG Display […] saw its share of that display size/resolution plunge to 38 percent in the first quarter from about 61 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013 …


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Patent jury foreman advises Apple to sue Google directly

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy May 6 2014 - 4:16 am PT
54 Comments
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Photo: technobuffalo.com

The foreman of the jury that awarded Apple just 5.5 percent of the $2.2B it claimed Samsung owed for patent infringements said yesterday that Apple should sue Google rather than handset manufacturers, reports the WSJ.

If you really feel that Google is the cause behind this, as I think everybody has observed, then don’t beat around the bush,” said Tom Dunham, whose job at IBM was to oversee developers expected to file patents. “Let the courts decide. But a more direct approach may be something to think about” …


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Apple & Samsung slip below 50% in global smartphone marketshare for Q1 2014

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Apr 29 2014 - 7:00 am PT
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Both Samsung and Apple have slipped in smartphone marketshare globally during the first quarter of 2014 according to the latest numbers from research firm Strategy Analytics. While global smartphone shipments grew 33 percent to 285 million units in Q1 compared to 213.9 million in the same quarter last year, Apple and Samsung collectively dropped from over 50 percent of the market to 47 percent. The report cites strong growth of “second-tier smartphone brands” such as Huwaei and Lenovo and lack of entry-level devices in markets abroad from Apple as the main contributors to slowed growth for Samsung and Apple. As for Apple on its own:
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Samsung bought two patents specifically for use in Apple trial, say attorneys

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Apr 23 2014 - 4:14 am PT
11 Comments
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In the ongoing patent trial where Apple is claiming Samsung infringed five of its patents, and Samsung is claiming Apple did the same to two of its patents, it has been suggested that Samsung bought the two patents concerned specifically to sue Apple. The allegation was made by Apple’s attorneys, reports The Verge.

The original inventors on the video patent, for instance, originated in Oklahoma, and the gallery patent originally belonged to Hitachi. In the case of the video patent, Samsung disclosed that it paid $2.39 million to acquire it in 2010, the same year FaceTime debuted alongside the iPhone 4. Apple hopes that will stand in stark contrast with its five patents, two of which were filed the day the company introduced the iPhone, and all developed within the company …


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Google agrees to defend Samsung, pay some of its costs in patent infringement case against Apple

Avatar for Chance Miller Apr 22 2014 - 3:43 pm PT
10 Comments

While testifying in the Samsung vs Apple case on Tuesday, it was revealed that Google has agreed to help Samsung defend itself against Apple in its current patent-infringement case. According to a report from Re/Code, citing deposition testimony from Google lawyer James Maccoun, Google has also agreed to partially or fully indemnify Samsung for any loses it may suffer on its claims.


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Apple teases Samsung in new environmental print ad: ‘There are some things we want every company to copy’

Avatar for Benjamin Mayo Apr 22 2014 - 2:53 am PT
36 Comments
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As part of its recent environmental campaign, Apple has taken out some tongue-in-cheek full-page print advertising in newspapers around the world today. The ad reads ‘There are some things we want every company to copy’. The ad was first spotted by David McClelland on Twitter. (Hi-res version below:)


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9to5Toys Last Call: Samsung 28″ 4K monitor $600, free $5 audible credit, PNY 128GB USB3 flash drive $43, more

Avatar for Apr 21 2014 - 10:02 am PT
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Be sure to follow 9to5Toys to keep up with the best gear and deals on the web: Twitter, RSS Feed,Facebook, Google+ and subscribe to the new Safari push notifications feature.

Today’s can’t miss deals:

Last Call updates:

Samsung 28-inch 4K UHD LED 60Hz Monitor $600 shipped (Reg. $699)

Audible $5 audio book credit for free

PNY 128GB Turbo USB 3.0 Flash Drive $43 shipped (Reg. $70)

$100 iTunes gift card for $85: Save 15% on future apps, music, movies, more

Vizio 40″ 120Hz 1080p LED LCD HDTV + $200 Dell GC for $500 shipped


Other deals from today:


More deals still alive:

New products/useful info:

Microsoft/Google/Android:

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Samsung acknowledges one Apple invention: there’s an Apple II in its Innovation Museum

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Apr 21 2014 - 5:07 am PT
9 Comments

Photo: The Verge

Samsung and Apple may spend rather a lot of time arguing about who invented what in patent trials, but Samsung does at least acknowledge one Apple invention. The Samsung Innovation Museum, opened to mark the 45th anniversary of Samsung Electronics, includes an Apple II, described as “the first home computer.”

Death of Steve Jobs prompted Samsung’s U-turn on Apple attack ads

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Apr 16 2014 - 4:19 am PT
58 Comments
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We learned yesterday from patent trial evidence that Samsung was worried about running ads that directly attacked Apple, wanting Google to do it for them. We now know that it was the death of Steve Jobs which prompted Samsung’s change of mind, running the Next Big Thing ads which directly mocked Apple customers.

An email trail shows that Samsung America’s VP of U.S. sales Mike Pennington cynically described the death of Jobs as “the best opportunity” to run the campaign, as consumers might be worried about Apple’s future product innovations following the death of its famous co-founder.

Sorry to continue to push this issue, but I have seen this far too long and I know this is our best opportunity to attack iPhone …


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Apple agrees to participate in “Smartphone Anti-Theft Voluntary Commitment” program

Avatar for Mike Beasley Apr 15 2014 - 3:34 pm PT
22 Comments
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Apple has agreed to back a new initiative along with a host of Android manufacturers and all of the major U.S. cellular carriers that would require all smartphones manufactured after July 2015 to come with specific anti-theft features. The program is the latest attempt to prevent theft of smartphones, which some have blamed for increasing crime rates.

To this end, Apple introduced a first-of-its-kind system in iOS 7 that blocks freshly-restored iPhones from being used until the original owner logs in with the Apple ID associated with the device. Today’s agreement between the carriers and handset manufacturers essentially states that all parties will ship this exact type of system on new phones.

Specifically, the required anti-theft measures are broken into four kinds:

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Opinion: Should Apple settle its Android disputes and move on?

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Apr 15 2014 - 6:59 am PT
119 Comments
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With Apple in the midst of its second major court battle with Samsung over alleged patent violations, and all but one of the five claims relating to Android rather than to anything Samsung-specific, it’s gotten me wondering whether further cases of this kind are truly beneficial to Apple.

I understand it emotionally, of course. It’s galling to work hard on a hugely popular hardware design or user-interface only to see someone else copy parts of it, and the desire to hit back at that is a natural one. But I’m not sure that it makes too much sense rationally … 
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Samsung wanted Google to do its dirty work in attacking Apple

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Apr 15 2014 - 4:33 am PT
28 Comments
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Image: amongtech.com

Another interesting revelation from the ongoing Apple vs Samsung patent trial: concerned about launching attack ads on a company that was a customer as well as a competitor, Samsung sought to persuade Google to “launch a campaign against Apple.”

The then CEO of Samsung Telecommunications America, Dale Sohn, emailed his chief marketing officer to ask:

As you have shared previously, we are unable to battle [Apple] directly in our marketing. If it continues to be Samsung’s position to avoid attacking Apple given its status as as a large customer, can we go to Google to ask them to launch a campaign against Apple based on the many better Android products available in the market for Q4?


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Apple rests in patent suit after experts testify Samsung should pay $2 billion in damages

Avatar for Mike Beasley Apr 11 2014 - 2:54 pm PT
2 Comments

Apple software designer Greg Christie testifies during the Samsung trial

Apple has made its case against Samsung in the patent lawsuit that never ends, and the company’s attorneys rested today after an expert witness testified that Samsung should pay the full $2.191 billion in damages. As CNET  reports, Quantitative Economic Solutions economist Christopher Vellturo told the court today that Apple’s claim to over $2 billion is valid based on estimated profits lost to Samsung’s infringing devices as well as royalties owed to Apple for use of its protected software designs.

John Hauser, another of Apple’s expert witnesses, testified earlier this week that Samsung’s mobile phones would have been much less appealing to the public if they had lacked features that Apple created, such as the ubiquitous “slide to unlock” gesture. Together the two experts weaved a tale of desperation in which Samsung is depicted as having ripped off Apple’s design when it failed to create a compelling product that could stand its own against the juggernaut of the iPhone.

This case is really only halfway over, though. Samsung’s attorneys will now have a chance to defend against this narrative, providing testimony and evidence to support its own view and argue against the legitimacy of Apple’s software patents. Of course, it’s likely that once this case is over the two rivals will just find another reason to sue each other.

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Apple searching for new ad agencies following court revelation that Schiller was furious at Media Arts Lab

Avatar for Mike Beasley Apr 9 2014 - 3:40 pm PT
5 Comments

Ad Age reports that Apple is planning to hire as many as four new digital ad agencies. Evidence presented in the latest Samsung-Apple lawsuit earlier this week revealed that Phil Schiller, the Cupertino company’s SVP of marketing, was shaken up by Samsung’s recent ad campaign and furious with Media Arts Lab, Apple’s current advertising company, to the point that he considered finding a new ad firm.

The four companies being considered for addition to the company’s lineup include Huge, AKQA, Area 17, and Kettle, according to the report. Apple already works with several smaller digital agencies, so adding four more doesn’t necessarily mean that Media Arts Lab is going anywhere anytime soon.

Apple has suffered from a string of less-than-stellar online promotional material recently with its “isee5c” line of ads. Hiring a new digital agency could help turn things around for the company in that arena. If the above statements from Schiller are any indication, Apple is taking a long, hard look at revamping its current advertising plans in order to better stack up against competitors like Samsung.

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OpenTV and Nagravision file patent lawsuit against Apple over video-related technology

Avatar for Mike Beasley Apr 9 2014 - 2:15 pm PT
3 Comments

Photo: mashable.com

Suing Apple seems to be the thing to do these days. While the company is locked into a furious, seemingly-unending battle with Samsung, another suit has been announced today by two Swiss sister companies called OpenTV and Nagravision.

According to a press release by the The Kudelski Group, the parent company of the two filing suit, OpenTV focuses on software that includes “advanced program guides, video-on-demand, personal video recording, interactive and addressable advertising and a variety of enhanced television applications,” while Nagravision “provides security and multiscreen user experience solutions for the monetization of digital media.”

While the five patents in question aren’t specifically named in the press release, it’s safe to assume that they are related to video playback technologies included in OS X and iOS (both of which are named as infringing in the press release). iAds, iTunes, the App Store, and the Apple TV are also listed.

Apple’s expert witnesses explain why Samsung owes Apple $2B for patent infringements

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Apr 9 2014 - 4:04 am PT
9 Comments
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Image: CNET

With Samsung having argued in its opening statement that the $2B sum being claimed by Apple for five alleged patent violations was “a gross, gross exaggeration,” Apple called two expert witnesses to explain why it believes the sum is reasonable.

Re/code reports that first MIT professor John Hauser carried out a form of trade-off analysis to determine the value of individual features to customers.

Apple used a similar analysis from Hauser in the first Apple-Samsung trial in which he found customers might pay as much as $100 more for a Samsung phone that included patented features …


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Samsung continues mocking iPad’s lack of features in new Galaxy Pro ads

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Apr 8 2014 - 8:27 am PT
78 Comments
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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0bwRRxfuIk]

Samsung today posted a series of ads for its new Galaxy Pro tablets and with them continues the theme of directly mocking Apple. This time the target is the iPad Air. In one ad called “Multi User” (above), Samsung highlights the ability to have multiple user accounts on the Galaxy Pro tablet, a highly requested feature among iOS users that Samsung notes is still not available on the iPad.

Another ad, titled “Pixel Density” (below) takes on the iPad’s Retina display, claiming that the Galaxy Pro tablet has a better looking display due to a higher pixel density. Samsung’s Tab Pro 10.1 2014 tablet includes a resolution of 2560 x 1600 with a pixel density of 299 compared to the iPad’s 2048 x 1536, 264 ppi display. 
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Rumor: Apple planning to release iWatch in August-September timeframe

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Apr 8 2014 - 4:10 am PT
12 Comments

 

Concept image: Stephen Olmstead

You can’t get much sketchier than a Chinese Economic Daily report cited by DigiTimes, but the former is citing supply chain sources in claiming that Apple plans to release the iWatch in the third quarter of this year, and that the company expects to ship 65M units this year.

The iWatch will be manufactured by Quanta Computer, while Taiwan-based chip design house Richtek has also entered the supply chain. The device’s touch panel will be supplied by TPK, the paper noted. [With Samsung making the processor to Apple’s design.]

The original story says that suppliers have been asked to meet an August delivery date.

The China Times has previously suggested that TPK would make the touch panel, but this isn’t a particularly notable consistency: the company has in the past been a key panel supplier to Apple, while Quanta is a long-time Mac assembler, mostly in Asia but more recently in the USA also.

Barclays analyst Blayne Curtis, quoted in AppleInsider, is suggesting that the iWatch may include a UV sensor, measuring exposure to sunlight. While Curtis believes that the purpose of the rumored sensor is to prevent excessive exposure to sunlight, it’s possible that for some of us it might be more usefully employed to do the opposite …

‘Beating Apple is #1 priority, everything must be in context of beating Apple’ – internal Samsung docs

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Apr 7 2014 - 6:22 am PT
25 Comments
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Documents revealed by the second Apple vs Samsung patent trial are not just giving us a peek behind the corporate curtains at 1 Infinite Loop, but also a glimpse into Samsung’s Seoul boardroom. A slide from a Samsung business forecast from 2011 shows the company viewing “beating Apple” as its number one priority for 2012 … 
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Early iPhone 5 buyers were already asking for bigger screens, reveals confidential document

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Apr 7 2014 - 5:51 am PT
13 Comments

Patent trials generally aren’t the most exciting of events, but documents revealed through the second Apple vs Samsung case are certainly providing a lot of fascinating glimpses behind the scenes.

The latest is the above summary of research Apple carried out among early buyers of the iPhone 5 to find out what they thought of the phone and what improvements they wanted to see, tweeted by Jay Yarow. While longer battery-life and better maps will surprise no-one, it’s interesting that even at the beginning of last year, bigger screens was third on the list … 
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The research that shows Apple is right to take its time over the iWatch

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Apr 2 2014 - 6:25 am PT
14 Comments

New research from Endeavour shows that more than half of U.S. consumers who have owned a wearable device no longer use it, and of those two-thirds stopped using it within the first six months of ownership. This is up from the 40 percent abandonment found by a similar survey by CSS Insight last fall.

The Guardian newspaper in the UK has a supporting piece in which it found more than 900 Galaxy Gear watches for sale on eBay, with asking prices as low as a third of the purchase cost.

While the data may be bad news for existing smartwatch and fitness band suppliers, The Guardian has an apposite comparison with early mp3 players, which also suffered high abandonment rates a decade ago.

So lots of those early MP3 players eventually ended up in drawers; but that didn’t stop the sector becoming huge.

And the company responsible for that shift was, of course, Apple: the company which took its time getting both the device and the user-interface right.