Tech Industry

4,148 'Tech Industry' stories June 2007 - February 2015

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Mercedes-Benz chairman not losing sleep over Apple Car, compares it to car guys making a smartphone

Zac Hall Feb 24 2015 - 9:18 am PT

22 Comments

Mercedes-Benz chairman Dieter Zetsche

It happens each time there is talk that Apple is preparing to enter a new product category: industry leaders issue the standard statement that they’re unfazed by potential Apple competition because 1) Apple makes computers and 2) this is their turf, their expertise.

Almost like fulfilling the prophecy, head of Mercedes-Benz cars Dieter Zetsche recently did just that while discussing the rumor with Australian publication motoring.com.au:

“If there were a rumour that Mercedes or Daimler planned to start building smartphones then they (Apple) would not be sleepless at night. And the same applies to me.”

Zetsche added that his position in saying that Apple building a car would be like Mercedes building a smartphone is “full of respect” for the iPhone maker.
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FTC fines apps that falsely claimed to detect melanoma using iPhone camera

Jordan Kahn Feb 24 2015 - 8:35 am PT

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The FTC is fining the creators of two different smartphone apps, both of which were previously available as paid apps on the App Store, for falsely claiming to detect symptoms of melanoma. The two apps, MelApp and Mole Detective, have long been removed from the App Store (although a version of Mole Detective remains on Google Play for $4.99), and Apple appears to have cracked down on similar apps that were available on the store as recently as early 2014.

The Federal Trade Commission has challenged marketers for deceptively claiming their mobile apps could detect symptoms of melanoma, even in its early stages. In two separate cases, marketers of MelApp and Mole Detective have agreed to settlements that bar them from continuing to make such unsupported claims. The agency is pursuing charges against two additional marketers of Mole Detective who did not agree to settle.

It’s not the first and it likely won’t be the last time app makers face scrutiny from government officials over health care claims as fitness becomes more of a focus on mobile devices and companion wearables. As recently as November, the FTC was said to be pressing Apple on how it plans to use sensitive health related data collected from its upcoming Apple Watch launching in April.

Samsung remains a key supplier for Apple’s iPhone despite patent disputes, competition

Zac Hall Feb 24 2015 - 7:31 am PT

7 Comments

No matter which way you cut it, it remains remarkable that Samsung continues to serve as a key component supplier to Apple for the innards of the iPhone and iPad line while also being a major competitor in the mobile phone space. In fact, to this day, it is hard to argue that there is a bigger Apple component partner than Samsung.

Just as Samsung prepares to unveil its latest flagship Galaxy S6 next week, The Korea Times reports that Apple and Samsung have struck a deal for the latter company to supply the former with at least 50% of the mobile DRAM chips used it Apple’s followup to the iPhone 6 expected later this fall. But that’s the tip o’ the iceberg as they say…
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Samsung just bought a rumored Apple Car partner’s battery unit

Jordan Kahn Feb 23 2015 - 1:02 pm PT

8 Comments

Samsung has acquired the battery pack business of leading automotive parts supplier Magna International. The move, according to a statement from the companies, will “enhance Samsung SDI’s capabilities in batteries for electric vehicles.”

While Samsung producing batteries and energy storage solutions for vehicles isn’t exactly new—it already supplies batteries for Tesla and others—there is an Apple Car connection in its latest acquisition…
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$34 iPhone dongle allows 15-minute HIV test with similar accuracy to ‘gold standard’ lab test

Ben Lovejoy Feb 23 2015 - 5:17 am PT

5 Comments

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC9XNqSgj4w]

A team of biomedical engineers at Columbia University has developed an iPhone dongle costing just $34 that can conduct HIV tests with similar accuracy to ‘gold standard’ laboratory equipment costing over $18,000. The test, which also detects syphilis, takes just 15 minutes to run …
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Sprint says its new $90/month 12GB Family Share plan offers best value among US carriers

Jordan Kahn Feb 20 2015 - 8:53 am PT

14 Comments

Just one day after T-Mobile CEO John Legere announced the wireless provider surpassed Sprint to become the number three carrier in the country, Sprint today announced a new aggressive shared data plan that it says offers better value compared to T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon.
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Virgin Mobile drops complete iPhone lineup from its online store

Zac Hall Feb 20 2015 - 6:38 am PT

24 Comments

Since the launch of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus last fall, we’ve noticed that Sprint subsidiary Virgin Mobile USA has offered limited-to-no stock on its iPhone lineup with “out of stock” messages on each of their iOS device and seemingly no plans to replenish inventory. Specifically, the pre-paid carrier went head first into the holiday season without any iPhone inventory for shoppers.

Virgin later confirmed that it had no specific plans to carry the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus at the time, and now the prepaid carrier has completely scrubbed the entire iPhone lineup from its online store.
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John Legere says T-Mobile passed Sprint to become third largest US carrier

Jordan Kahn Feb 19 2015 - 1:31 pm PT

5 Comments

T-Mobile CEO John Legere announced during the company’s Q4 earnings call today that the company has surpassed Sprint to become the number three carrier in the country.

That would mean the carrier has reached its goal set by Legere to move ahead of Sprint by the end of last year (via The Verge):

“…Going into this year, they have 55 million customers… T-Mobile had 33 million customers. We merged with MetroPCS and went to 42 million customers, and we’ve since added 13 million customers to get up to, guess what, 55 million customers.”

So as of right now the two appear to be neck and neck based on the numbers Legere shared, but he also hinted T-Mobile’s lead would be easier to see over “the next quarter or two.”

[youtube=http://youtu.be/n72sk4fFSw4]

Yahoo unveils new suite of dev tools including search integration for other apps

Zac Hall Feb 19 2015 - 12:27 pm PT

1 Comment

After announcing its first dev con last December, Yahoo today kicked off its mobile developer conference in San Francisco where it unveiled five new products for mobile app makers. As suspected, Yahoo revealed the latest tools from Flurry, the mobile ad and analytics firm it acquired last July.

This includes Flurry Analytics Explorer, a new dashboard for the Flurry Analytics system which it says enables developers to discover more insights with than before, and Flurry Pulse, which lets app builders “share app signals with partners using their existing Flurry SDK implementations and the click of a button.”
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Samsung acquires Apple Pay competitor LoopPay to accelerate its mobile commerce effort

Chance Miller Feb 18 2015 - 1:00 pm PT

15 Comments

From 9to5Google:

Samsung announced in a press release this evening that it has purchased LoopPay, an Apple Pay-like mobile payment company. LoopPay turns existing magnetic stripe card readers into secure, contactless receivers. This means that, in an ideal world, LoopPay would be available in nearly every retailer that accepts magnetic strip cards. A specific acquisition price is unclear at this point.

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Motorola president responds to Ive criticism in New Yorker profile, says Apple charging ‘outrageous prices’

Benjamin Mayo Feb 18 2015 - 9:15 am PT

74 Comments

In an amusing retaliation to Jony Ive’s opinion of Motorola’s Moto Maker, Motorola president described their company as a ‘different philosophy’ as well as directly attacking Apple’s product lineup, describing iPhone prices as ‘outrageous’ in a conversation with the BBC.
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Long-time Macworld editor Chris Breen joins Apple

Stephen Hall Feb 17 2015 - 2:35 pm PT

3 Comments

Chris Breen, a long-time writer and Senior Editor for Macworld, has decided to leave a long-time career of journalism covering the Cupertino company and take his talents straight to Apple itself.

According to a post on his personal blog:

Just a note to say that I’ve left Macworld to work for a Cupertino-based technology company you may be familiar with.

There are loads of reasons for the change, but blend them together and they add up to my desire to try something different before I don the large shorts and spend the bulk of my remaining days looking for my misplaced spectacles.

“Chris has been such an essential staff member that the word “essential” seems woefully inadequate to describe him,” wrote Macworld’s Susie Ochs.

This news comes several months after another long-time journalist, Anand Shimpi of AnandTech.com, also retired from writing to join Apple.

As with Anand, it’s not known what Breen will be doing at Apple. Being part of the post-Cotton PR team at the company is definitely a possibility, but the fact that another Macworld Editor Jon Seff was picked up for the secretive Apple University training program might shine some light on what Apple is doing with these journos.

IDC: Xiaomi’s growth tops Samsung in China, but Apple is making a dent too

Stephen Hall Feb 17 2015 - 12:56 pm PT

16 Comments

According to the latest numbers from IDC, Xiaomi—the rising star of the smartphone industry—has managed to pass up Samsung in China. In 2013, Xiaomi trailed Samsung’s almost 19% market share by a solid 13 percentage points (at just 5.3%), and was only the 5th largest maker of smartphones in China. Things changed in 2014. Last year, Xiaomi finished off with 12.5% of the market, almost a half-point more than Samsung at 12.1%, taking the top spot and passing not just Samsung, but Lenovo, Huawei, and Coolpad as well.

Interestingly, though, the latest numbers also show that Apple’s launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus contributed to a decent size dent in both Samsung and Xiaomi’s market footprint in Q4 of last year.
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BlackBerry again sues Ryan Seacrest’s Typo for copying keyboard design in latest products

Jordan Kahn Feb 17 2015 - 8:49 am PT

9 Comments

Following a US District Judge in San Francisco ordering Typo to pay BlackBerry $860,000, the Ryan Seacrest-backed company now faces another suit from the Canadian smartphone maker for continuing to sell its iPhone case with an integrated hardware keyboard.
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The New Yorker profiles Jony Ive: details meeting Jobs, iPhone 6, Apple Watch, cars and more

Benjamin Mayo Feb 16 2015 - 4:02 am PT

16 Comments

The New Yorker has published an extensive profile on Jony Ive, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Design. Many newspapers have written up articles on Ive in recent years, but this latest account by Ian Parker is by far the most detailed and (arguably) the most interesting, revealing new anecdotes and tidbits on Apple’s latest products in the process.

The story tracks how Jony arrived at Apple back in the late 90’s, how his relationship with Jobs developed over that period, and how he is adapting to ‘leading’ design in post-Jobs Apple. The piece includes some new details about how the Watch project and the newest iPhones formed, as well as incorporating quotes from Tim Cook, Bob Mansfield, and others.

Read on for some select excerpts from The New Yorker’s story.

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Phorm case for iPad promises tactile typing w/ the on-screen keyboard through a unique approach

Zac Hall Feb 12 2015 - 9:00 am PT

10 Comments

Tactus Technology is introducing a unique, new keyboard case today called Phorm that promises to bring tactile feedback to the typing experience while still using the on-screen touch keyboard. Phorm uses microfluids to raise a segments of a screen protector kept on with a frame and protective case to apply “physical” keys that appear and disappear at the swipe of switch. The goal is to improve typing speed and accuracy when typing with the iPad without requiring a keyboard you have to charge or pair with your tablet. Check out the video below to see Phorm in action.
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iPhone 6/6 Plus come to Ting as Sprint MVNOs no longer required to wait for new devices

Jordan Kahn Feb 11 2015 - 6:25 am PT

9 Comments

Sources say Sprint is dropping a requirement that made the mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) using its network—such as Ting, FreedomPop, Straight Talk, Boost, and Virgin—wait a certain period of time, usually at least a year, before offering support for the latest devices.
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Apple threatens to ban iPhone, iPad accessory makers that design based on leaks

Jordan Kahn Feb 10 2015 - 6:52 am PT

24 Comments

Apple is working to step up the secrecy surrounding future iPhone and iPad models by targeting a frequent source of leaks: third-party accessory makers. 9to5Mac has learned that in fall 2014, just before the iPhone 6 launched, Apple demanded that a number of leading accessory makers sign agreements barring them from seeking out information about future Apple devices, according to four sources with first-hand knowledge of the matter.

On one hand, the agreement dangled the loss of “future business opportunities that Apple and/or its affiliates may present to you” as a potential consequence of violating or not signing the agreement. On the other hand, signing and following it could lead to months-long delays in making accessories like cases available, during the time of year when those cases were most needed and demanded by customers.
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The iPhone and iPad reportedly captured 93% of mobile device profits in holiday quarter, 79% across 2014

Benjamin Mayo Feb 9 2015 - 8:01 am PT

1 Comment

Apple reported the largest profit ever recorded by a public company in the holiday quarter, mostly driven by sales of 74 million iPhones with an average selling price of $687. According to Cannacord, this meant Apple captured 93% of handset smartphone profits. Perhaps more staggering is that it claims Apple dominated on similar levels across the entire of 2014 — with 79% of mobile device profits.

The analyst expects continued growth for the iPhone for the next few users, with an estimated 650 million iPhone users by the end of 2018.

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Opinion: Could Apple’s integrated streaming music service decimate the competition?

Ben Lovejoy Feb 9 2015 - 7:39 am PT

40 Comments

Image: Forbes

When Apple enters a new business, you know it’s not going to do so in a half-hearted, small way. When it launches its Apple-branded Beats Music service later this year, it’s a no-brainer to predict that it’s going to be a big deal for the music industry. With Apple’s deep integration of Beats into its existing iOS/iTunes ecosystem exclusively revealed by Mark Gurman added into the mix, I wonder whether the unique selling points being notched up by Apple could be enough to leave existing big-name players like Spotify, Google Play and Rdio dead in the water?

That’s rather a grand idea, of course. As of last month, Spotify reached 15 million paid subscribers–up 50% in the last six months alone. Beats Music had only a little over 100,000 subscribers at the time Apple bought the company, and is rumored to have only 2-3 times as many now. But an Apple-ified Beats Music service has four things going for it …
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Twitter blames iOS 8, iPhone 6 launch for loss of 4 million monthly active users

Mike Beasley Feb 5 2015 - 4:44 pm PT

19 Comments

Twitter CFO Anthony Noto announced today that the social network was placing the blame for 4 million lost users squarely on Apple’s shoulders, saying that the company had “lost approximately 4 million net users due to rollouts of iOS 8” during an earnings call.

The logic here, Business Insider explains, is that the Shared Links section in iOS 7’s version of Safari automatically updated to pull in the latest links from a users Twitter feed. In iOS 8 this feature has been shifted to use a manual refresh. As a result, users who were previously counted when their phones checked for those shared links were no longer listed among the service’s monthly active users.

But Twitter wasn’t done playing the blame game just yet. The microblogging service went on to say that as many as 1 million users had upgraded their iPhones and simply forgotten their passwords or failed to reinstall the Twitter app, leading to even fewer active users thanks to Apple.

Overall Twitter reported 288 million monthly active users for Q4 2014.

Update: Probably with a little push from Apple, Twitter now says:

https://twitter.com/twitterir/status/563757798224171009

Swatch planning cross-platform smartwatch & mobile payments to compete with Apple Watch, says CEO

Zac Hall Feb 5 2015 - 7:28 am PT

18 Comments

Late Swatch co-founder Nicolas Hayek

While Swatch certainly won’t be partnering with Apple on the iPhone maker’s upcoming Watch despite an ill-fated rumor that surfaced last year, the watchmaker does plan to go toe-to-toe with Apple promising its own version of a smartwatch due out soon. Bloomberg reports that Swatch plans to bring its answer to the Apple Watch to market in the next 90 days.

The device will communicate via the Internet “without having to be charged,” Chief Executive Officer Nick Hayek said in an interview. The Swatch smartwatch will also let consumers make mobile payments and work with Windows and Android software, he said.

It’s unclear if Swatch intends for its own smartwatch to be compatible with iPhones like the Apple Watch or if the company is only targeting competing platforms, but Swatch CEO Nick Hayek’s claim that its Internet-connected watch won’t need to be charged will be interesting if the company does indeed deliver with functionality that competes with an Apple Watch.
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Typo ordered to pay BlackBerry $860k for selling its knockoff iPhone keyboard case

Jordan Kahn Feb 5 2015 - 6:12 am PT

4 Comments

Typo, the Ryan Seacrest-backed company selling an iPhone case with an integrated hardware keyboard, has been ordered to pay BlackBerry around $860,600 in the ongoing case between the two companies, Reuters reports.

If you’re unfamiliar, BlackBerry didn’t particularly like the Typo keyboard’s resemblance to its own iconic, albeit obsolete, keyboard included on its dwindling smartphone lineup and covered by its patents. After the court handed down an injunction following an original suit filed in January of 2014, a US District Judge in San Francisco ruled this week that Typo will have to pay the £567,303, or approximately $860,600, fine for violating the injunction and continuing to sell the product.

Despite little interest from anyone and generally poor reviews, Typo plans to keep making its keyboard cases and noted to Reuters that the fines do not relate to its latest generation of Typo 2 products unveiled at CES last month.

Apple again said to be going back to Samsung for A9 chip in future iOS devices

Jordan Kahn Feb 4 2015 - 12:10 pm PT

2 Comments

After moving to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to produce chips for its latest mobile devices and reduce reliance on competitor Samsung, Recode reports that Apple is tapping Samsung for its next-gen A9 chips.

While Apple had hoped to rely more heavily on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to fabricate the Ax family of processors used in its iOS devices, the company has turned to Samsung for its next-generation A9 chip, according to people with knowledge of the situation…. Though Samsung refuses to identify chip customers, sources say the company is working to ensure an adequate supply of application processors for the next-generation iPhone.

The report mirrors much of what we’ve already heard in recent reports from others adding that “Samsung holds a technological edge over TSMC when it comes to the latest manufacturing process.”

More specifically, Recode cites the fact that “Samsung has managed to shrink the size of the transistors on its chips to 14 nanometers — effectively packing more processing power into a smaller space and consuming less power. TSMC is still at 20 nanometers.” The upper hand with Samsung’s tech was also noted as a reason behind Apple’s decision in earlier reports.

Samsung was said to be handling around 30% of Apple’s latest A8 chips in current gen iOS devices with TSMC producing the majority. Prior to the current-gen A8 chip, Samsung was previously producing the majority of Apple’s mobile chips alongside many other components for Apple products.