Samsung is reported to have notched up 9 million pre-orders for its Galaxy S III smartphone ahead of its launch. According to Reuters, the pre-orders have been made from over 100 global carriers, not customers, ahead of its release. Customers will be able to get their hands on the device starting May 29 in Germany, before it begins rolling out across other countries.
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The burgeoning Chinese smartphone market stands to earn companies billions of dollars in coming years. Though this has not been independently confirmed, Microsoft now claims that Windows Phone has edged out the iPhone with a seven percent share compared to Apple's six percent, despite Apple's emphasis on the emerging market.
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6 hours ago | Posted in: iPhone, Apple
Before his death, Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs allegedly worked on a redesigned, next-generation iPhone that features a larger screen and LTE compatibility, Bloomberg reports. Three sources have confirmed that the company has ordered larger screens for the next iPhone, but did not indicate exactly what size the new device would use. Current rumors have Apple favoring a four-inch (measured diagonally) screen.
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8 hours ago | Posted in: Apple
Aaron Sorkin, the screenwriter behind 2010's The Social Network and the TV series The West Wing told reporters earlier today that he has little idea about what he's going to write so far in Sony's planned biographical film on the life of Apple co-creator and former CEO Steve Jobs. He did reveal that the movie won't be a "straight ahead biography" and that Steve Wozniak has been hired as an advisor.
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9 hours ago | Posted in: industry, Apple
One of the defendants dealing with multiple antitrust lawsuits has settled the overall complaint filed by many states' attorneys general. As a result, Judge Denise Cote granted a motion on Tuesday to dismiss Simon & Schuster from the federal complaint. The terms of the settlement have not been provided.
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10 hours ago | Posted in: security, Apple
A small number of users in the Apple Support Communities have reported that their iCloud e-mail accounts may have been compromised by spammers, even in cases where the user had a strong, randomized password. Reports began flowing in of mostly little-used iCloud accounts sending out spam messages, replies to which alerted users of the problem. Apple has not commented on the issue thus far.
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Unconfirmed reports of Apple testing Ivy Bridge-based MacBook Pro prototypes with latest-generation SSD storage may suggest that the company is considering making the faster drives part of the standard configuration of the new machines, which are expected to utilize a super-thin redesign like the MacBook Air and debut sometime in the near future. Whether the machines would continue to offer room for traditional notebook HDDs is unknown.
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11 hours ago | Posted in: iPhone
On the heels of similar offers from Target and Radio Shack, chains Best Buy, Sam's Club, and Sprint have succumbed to peer pressure. Best Buy and Sam's Club have reduced the price of the iPhone 4 8GB model to $50 with a new two-year contract. As reported earlier, Sprint is offering "at least" $100 off a new contract on an iPhone 4S with the exchange of any prior iPhone.
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The US District Court of Delaware has ordered Apple and HTC to enter settlement discussions. Judge Sherry Fallon will be moderating the talks, which follow the import ban that has stalled HTC's Evo 4G LTE and One X from entering the US, reports Florian Mueller.
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Accessory maker iHome announced a new product in its growing line of home audio accessories. The new iP76 is a LED color changing tower stereo speaker system. Audio sources can be provided by an iOS device, other wireless devices with Bluetooth version 1.2 compatibility, or any device with a line out jack.
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The Video Standards Council has become the UK's sole statutory video-games regulator, administering the PEGI rating system. The changes now mean age checking for the sale of any game rated PEGI 12, 16 or 18 would become enforceable under UK law. Previously, the system was in an advisory capacity and not legally enforceable, with PEGI games rated 15 or higher also being rated by the BBFC for content.
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14 hours ago | Posted in: Apple
Before his death on October 5th, one of the things Apple co-founder Steve Jobs wanted to build was a so-called "iCar," according to company board member and J. Crew CEO Mickey Drexler. "Look at the car industry; it's a tragedy in America," he said during a Fast Company conference this week. "Who is designing the cars? ... Steve's dream before he died was to design an iCar."
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Apple has released a fourth preview of Mountain Lion Server to developers. The code is also listed as build 12S219n, and follows just a day after a third update of the main Mountain Lion preview. A number of known issues are listed in the Server preview; among others, there are several problems each in the use of FileVault, Time Machine, and Game Center.
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16 hours ago | Posted in: Apple
Apple's large-scale datacenter in Maiden, North Carolina will run entirely on renewable energy by the end of the year, the company has announced. Currently Apple is in the middle of buying equipment from Bloom Energy and SunPower Corp. to build not one but two solar arrays in the Maiden area; previously, only one was known to be in development. Once the equipment is in place, it should generate 84 million kWh of energy per year. Apple's fuel cell farm should be finished later in 2012.
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Recosoft has launched the next major version of PDF2OFfice Professional, which now includes support for Windows XPS files and the OmniGraffle v5.x format. PDF3Office allows users to convert PDF and XPS files into editable Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OmniGraffle formats by recreating the intended construction and layout of the document. Version 6.0 introduces a new hybrid 64-bit PDF/XPS conversion core, as well as an option for optimizing files for editing and viewing on iOS devices. Customers who purchased a PDF2Office Professional v5.x license on or after April 1, 2012 are entitled to a free upgrade, while a full license costs $99.
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18 hours ago | Posted in: hacks, Apple
For a brief time on Thursday Apple was censoring appearances of the word "jailbreak" on the iTunes Store, reports note. One example included the Thin Lizzy album and song of the same name, which were suddenly renamed "J*******k." Other instances of the word, though, are said to have remained unaffected. By Thursday afternoon Eastern time, the extra censorship is observed to have disappeared.
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