Apple’s plans for the iPhone 5 extend beyond the iWallet and straight into a more mobile computing experience than you’ve seen before using an iPhone, at least that’s what Cult of Mac is claiming.
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iPhone is the most popular US smartphone while the Android army’s march has propelled that multiplicity of devices to become the most popular OS, Canalsys reports today.
The analysts note massive growth in the sector – the worldwide smartphone market grew by 95 percent over the year ago quarter. Nokia stays ahead of the pack with 33 percent while Apple grabbed 17 percent worldwide, putting it above RIM.
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Apple’s senior VP retail, Ron Johnson, has exercised 150,000 AAPL stock options at a strike price of $11.73, selling these for a total $44.1 million.
Johnson, who has been responsible for Apple’s explosive retail store success, sold his shares at an average $306.07 per share, according to a SEC filing.
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Remember when Motorola sued Apple (and everyone else) earlier this month? Remember when Motorola said Droid Does and iPhone Doesn’t? Well today Apple is hitting back at Motorola. Apple has recently filed two lawsuits against Motorola over six patents filed by Apple relating to Multi-Touch. According to Apple’s lawsuit the Motorola products infringing on Apple’s Intellectual Property are the Droid, Droid 2, Droid X, Cliq, Cliq XT, BackFlip, Devour A555, Devour i1, and Charm 1.
Apple has split up the six patent infringements into two lawsuits and here they are from Patently Apple:
One: Apple, Inc patent titled: Ellipse Fitting for Multi-Touch Surfaces
Two: Apple, Inc patent titled: Multipoint Touchscreen
Three: Taligent, Inc patent titled: Object-Oriented System Locator System
Four: Apple, Inc, patent titled: Touch Screen Device, Method, and Graphical User Interface for Determining Commands by Applying Heuristics
Five: Apple Computer, Inc. patent titled: Method and Apparatus for Displaying and Accessing Control and Status Information in a Computer System
Six: Apple Computer, Inc. patent titled: Support for Custom User-Interaction Elements in a Graphical, Event-Driven Computer System
iOS app strategist Raven Zachary today revealed via Twitter that Microsoft apparently has a group dedicated to the iPad. This tidbit comes from Zachary overhearing two Microsoft employees discussing confidential information. Electronista reported this tweet as possible evidence that Microsoft is developing an iPad competitor.
It would be no shock that Microsoft is working on some tablets of their own but we do not think this tweet is any indication that Microsoft has a dedicated group to go against the iPad. The original report states that the tweet could also mean they have a group dedicated to market research of the iPad but it probably has nothing to do with that either.
If you recall, back in September of this year we reported that a Microsoft employee revealed that Microsoft was in fact working on some applications for the iPad. Because of this, we believe this “iPad group” has no anti-iPad incinations but is instead the group working on Microsoft’s iPad App Store applications.
What will be inside the iPad 2.0? If you’ve been asking yourself this question then you don’t have too long to wait — iPad 2.0 will boast a camera and is set to ship in the first quarter of 2011.
COMPUTERWORLD: Despite the heavily-hyped Android onslaught and the ‘antenna-gate’ affair, Apple has managed to ease its way into the top five handset makers for the first time, bouncing Sony Ericcson out of the game and returning iPhone sales growth of 90.5 percent since last year.
Sprint’s making cooing noises around Apple, praising the company’s iPad for stimulating interest in the carrier’s Overdrive 3G/4G MiFi Wireless hotspot device.
Sprint CEO Dan Hesse, says “Smartphones is part of a bigger value proposition, because you need to have a network that can support that smart phone,” he said.
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Apple launched its online retail store in China this week — and promptly sold out of iPhone 4 units within 10 hours, forcing the company to suspend sales.
With Apple’s recent move to stop iPhone sales in its brick-&-mortar stores in China, this means there’s now nowhere to purchase an iPhone in the country — except from the scalpers who are scooping-up all stocks in the first place.
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Apple’s over $20B in revenues announced earlier this month easily blew away Microsoft’s $16.20 billion in revenues reported today. However, Microsoft still retains the profit crown with a whopping $5.4 billion in earnings while Apple “only” reported $4.3 billion this quarter.
I wonder how the holiday quarter is shaping up for the two? Microsoft is going to have to sell a lot of Xboxes to beat the iOS brigade.
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Something tells me that there are going to be many requests for this feature.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryZP00_KhYE&w=640&h=390]
Just like the iPad and those tiny underpowered netbooks out there, the 11″ MacBook Air has been cleared to go through Airport security in the US without being taken out of its bag.
Apple may wish to avoid comparisons of the MacBook Air to similarly compact but underpowered netbooks. However, like netbooks, Apple’s new laptop is “smaller than a standard-size laptop,” meaning it can stay in a bag, said TSA spokesman Nicholas Kimball.
The rules on whether the larger, 13-inch MacBook Air — thinner than most laptops because it doesn’t have a DVD or hard drive — would need to be placed on the conveyor belt separately have not been established, Kimball said.
In related news, the head of British Airways said that…
the practice of forcing people to take off their shoes and have their laptops checked separately in security lines should be ditched.
COMPUTERWORLD: Intense competition; component cost price hikes; and rapid technology advancement — for most handset manufacturers, mobile’s not a nice market any more. Apple’s iPhone advantages include some Android and others can never match.
It still seems a little weird mentioning Apple products and Verizon in the same sentence but they are now for sale with Mifis in Verizon Stores. AT&T too. Verizon’s are Wifi versions bundled with Mifis while AT&T have the 3G iPads that are tied to their network with the same price points for each.
Apple has filed its 2010 annual report with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, revealing higher employee numbers, higher advertising spend and a slight decline in profit margins as it kept iPad prices as low as it could.
The company has raised its employee numbers by over a third from last year, it had 46,600 full-time employees as of September 25, up from 34,300 a year ago and 28,000 in 2008.
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TPK Holdings, a supplier of touchscreens for iPhones and iPads has seen serious business come its way as a result of its Apple connection, raising $200 million from its IPO — the largest such offering in Taiwan this year. Similar happy rumblings too from Apple’s carrier partners in the area, who confirmed rising profits and subscriber numbers on back of the Apple device.
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Apple has removed all mention of the white iPhone from its website, scant hours since some reports claimed the company may have dismissed the product completely.
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Yet more information on the iPhone which doesn’t yet exist! And no, I’m not talking about the mythical, nay, almost unicorn-like white iPhone 4 fantasy creature, but the CDMA iPhone for use on networks outside of AT&T.
Pegatron Technology has been identified as manufacturer of the new model CDMA iPhone, and a report in today’s edition of Digitimes tells us that company expects to ship 10 million of these things next year.
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Speaking of data center speculation, just how big are Apple’s plans for North Carolina? Sure, we already know the company’s almost finished building one of the world’s largest data centers there — and we recently learned it could even be twice the size we originally thought — this morning we learn Apple has also purchased land sufficient to make the center even larger.
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Some speculation exists claiming Apple may be migrating its iTunes services to services hosted at its growing North Carolina data center this Thanksgiving.
This speculation is based on information provided to Apple developers in which the company warns that its traditional Christmas period shut down of the iTunes Connect service will this year also see a similar shut down happen at Thanksgiving.
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Despite ramped-up competition, Apple should achieve at least 22.5 million iPad sales in 2011 — and that’s not analyst bluster or wishful thinking but the conservative estimate of Apple competitor, ViewSonic.
According to TechCrunch, Apple is in early discussions to buy music streaming service Spotify. Spotify is an incredibly hot music service in Europe but hasn’t been able to get a footing in the US. (They haven’t been able to sign one label).
Some put the blame on Apple for that and accuse Cupertino of threatening lost wages from iTunes if the labels sign up for the streaming service. Apple approved Spotify for use on the iPhone in Europe in April of last year so Apple probably has some definitive proof of lost revenue, if that is the case.
A $1 billion Spotify deal with Google was apparently close to completion last year but the deal fell through because Google was “demanding that all label deals be grandfathered in. And Spotify wanted a $800 million+ walk away fee if the deal faltered (Google had a similar provision in their Admob acquisition)”.
Apple bought streaming music service Lala at the same time as Google flirt with Spotify but all of Lala’s label deals disintegrated when they got purchased (as per their contracts) and Apple was left with the engineering talent and technology. Spotify’s label deals are likely of the same nature so, to me, it is surprising that Apple would be after another set of streaming engineers, another set of technology and some more people with music industry experience. They clearly have some plans for all of that space in North Carolina.
Update: Spotify contacted CNET to let them know they have no intention to sell the company.
Office 2011 just arrived at the HQ today (OK we’ve been testing a demo version for a few weeks with very positive results).
See notable reviews: Macworld, CNET, PC Mag,
If its time to update your Office Install, Amazon has $10-$40 discounts and is currently shipping:
http://images.tv.adobe.com/swf/player.swf
From Adobe’s Max conference today: looks solid but of course the video is in Flash which ..um ..
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