02/13, 5:25pm
DOJ next to OK Google-Motorola and adds Nortel
The US Department of Justice in a brief said it had approved both Google's acquisition of Motorola, the joint purchase of Nortel patents by Apple, Microsoft, RIM, and others, as well as a similar Novell patent sale. Antitrust regulators in both cases had decided it was "unlikely" that the deals would hurt competition. It was partly reassured by Apple, Google, and Microsoft all promising to license standards-based patents based on FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) terms.
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02/13, 4:00pm
RIM director Martin justifies slow turnaround
RIM director Roger Martin in an unusual interview with the Globe and Mail defended RIM's decision to hold for years before bringing in a new CEO. He saw there being no option for an outside CEO until RIM had groomed one from the inside, with outsiders being "morons from the outside" who would inevitably gut the BlackBerry designer. Martin went so far as to liken the departing Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis to the late Steve Jobs, insisting that only the two were talented enough and that RIM couldn't afforded an involuntarily exodus.
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02/13, 2:15pm
Samsung thinks UI no factor in facing Apple TV set
Samsung's AV product lead Chris Moseley in an interview Monday was dismissive of the threat posed by a possible Apple TV set. In the chat with Pocket-lint, he insisted that image quality was the primary factor and that Apple wouldn't have the image scaling or "world-renowned" picture quality. He downplayed the interface and software features, normally the highlight of Apple's devices, as backseat elements.
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02/13, 1:40pm
EU gives full approval to Google-Motorola
As anticipated, the European Commission on Monday approved Google's $12.5 billion buyout of Motorola. The approval was without conditions after the EU body decided that it wouldn't hurt smartphone competition or patent issues. Commissioner Joaquin Almunia was aware there was a chance Google might abuse patents to shelter Android, but he promised legal action if that was the case.
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02/13, 12:00pm
ThinkGeek unveils iCade 8-Bitty at Toy Fair
ThinkGeek picked the American International Toy Fair to bring out the iCade 8-Bitty, a much more portable alternative to the iCade cabinet. The wireless iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch gamepad is conspicuously styled like (though not identical to) the original NES controller with four face buttons, Select and Start, although it also has two shoulder buttons. It works with the same iCade-friendly titles, such as Atari's Greatest Hits, as well as any others wanting to use the freely available support.
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02/13, 11:30am
NPD says Apple top US tech brand
Apple now represents about a fifth of all technology sales in the US, new NPD data showed Monday. By the end of 2011, 19 percent of revenue in the US was related to an Apple product. The company was now the top company selling technology in the US, topping HP, Samsung, Sony, and Dell even when the others could include their sales from all categories.
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02/13, 9:55am
Apple volunteers for wide audits of factories
Apple on Monday took the step of asking the Fair Labor Association to orchestrate "special voluntary audits" of its last-stage suppliers. The investigations, which include Foxconn plants in Chengdu and Shenzhen, began the same day. They include both interviews with "thousands" of workers over conditions as well as inspections and document reviews.
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02/13, 7:45am
Pegatron maybe pressed to choose Apple vs ASUS
A tentative rumor has had Pegatron allegedly forced to choose between manufacturing ASUS' Zenbooks and Apple's iOS devices. Taiwan's Commercial Times had heard that Apple was supposedly unhappy with the similarity to the MacBook Air and didn't want one of its own contractors to be making what was perceived to be a clone. If it happened, production wouldn't stop until at least March and would be outsourced to a nearby contractor like Compal or Wistron.
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02/12, 2:30pm
comScore shows shift to mobile in mail
As part of a larger study, comScore has shown that e-mail is making a large shift away from the web. Among teens and those aged 18 to 24, webmail use dropped by about a third in December from where it was one year earlier. Declines also appeared among the 35 to 44 set (down one point) and 55 to 64 (by seven points).
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02/12, 10:00am
SNL shows troubles of modern 4G ads
Saturday Night Live made technology an unusual target after it poked fun at Verizon in a pre-recorded skit (below). A customer (Fred Armisen) comes in asking about the carrier's 4G LTE network and is barraged with an increasingly technical and nonsensical sales pitch. By the end, LTE is likened to orange juice, and Verizon is described as an "old person's nightmare."
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02/11, 1:40pm
Apple lawsuit vs Samsung expanded
An expansion upon what few details have been available from Apple's new Samsung lawsuit has suggested that it reaches more at the core of Android and less at Samsung's specific actions. Along with accusing Samsung of violating a newer unlock gesture patent than what was covered in Germany, a second patent for a "universal interface" for retrieving data appeared to Florian Mueller to accuse Samsung of violating Siri-style searches, where stitching together keywords presents just the immediately needed results. While Android on a base level doesn't do this, it would prevent Google from providing a narrower search method in Android.
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02/11, 12:55am
Spotify and Foursquare get special features
Two major mobile apps got updates for special features at the end of the week. Spotify on iOS (App Store) now has the option to both stream and sync audio at 320Kbps, the same quality as it exists on the desktop. While it requires either a more intensive Internet connection or extra storage for cached tracks, it puts the app's audio quality ahead of other on-demand music rivals.
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02/10, 7:45pm
Instagram gets significant visual update
Instagram finished the week with a significant update to its app (App Store). The 2.1 update now has Lux, an image adustment option that automatically brings out details in highlights and shadows in a rough equivalent to high dynamic range (HDR) shooting. Similar to the tilt-shift effect, Lux can stack with other filters.
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02/10, 5:55pm
ATT upgrade fee hike coming February 12
A staff memo has leaked plans for AT&T to hike its device upgrade fee. The BGR copy had the cost jumping from $18 to $36. The cost was allegedly necessary because the "overall costs" for upgrading to a new device had gone up, AT&T said.
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02/10, 4:45pm
Apple uses patent exhaustion versus Motorola in US
Apple's lawsuit retaliation continued on Friday after it sued Motorola in the US over 3G patent issues. The iPhone designer sought to block Motorola from making patent violation accusations based on its use of Qualcomm's MDM6610 cellular chipset as well as any others it might use. It came after Qualcomm confirmed to Apple that it was already paying for a license to Motorola's 3G patents, which Apple took to mean that it was exempt from paying itself.
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02/10, 12:35pm
Apple sues Samsung twice in one week
Apple scaled up its legal attacks late this week with lawsuits against Samsung both in the US and in Germany. The American complaint, details of which were filed in a Northern District of California court in San Jose on Wednesday and published on Friday, accuses Samsung of violating two patents that it had only just obtained in December. Samsung was accused of copying iOS' techniques for heuristic information finding as well as its method of suggesting a replacement word when a misspelling is highlighted.
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02/10, 11:50am
Chitika claims iOS now used online more than Mac
New Chitika traffic data has seen Apple possibly cross a milestone for web use online. As of February, 8.15 percent of all web traffic being monitored was coming from an iOS device, passing the Mac for the first time with OS X share at 7.96 percent. The two platforms had been converging since October, with the Mac losing share mostly as Apple's other OS gained prominence.
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02/10, 9:25am
EPS could hit $50 in 2012, says analyst
A Mizuho Securities hire, Abhey Lamba, has started Apple coverage at his new firm with a $635 target, says Barron's. The analyst argues that Apple will continue to succeed, and that Wall Street consensus figures are probably too low, despite more intense competition. Android smartphones are mainly taking away share from Nokia and Research in Motion, not the iPhone, he notes.
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02/10, 8:25am
ATT stocks first LTE micro-SIM cards
AT&T's plans for the year took a step forward Friday after a sighting of its first LTE-capable micro-SIM cards. A store contact for Phone Arena caught a briefing that sales staff were to get rid of older cards and replace them with the new versions fully capable of talking to the 4G network. The memo didn't specifically attach the cards to any one device.
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02/09, 8:30pm
Both tout major advantage over alternative phones
Apple has quietly added two new iPhone 4S ads, both showcasing Siri's voice recognition and intelligent-assistant technology, to its iPhone videos web page. In "Road Trip," a man decides to travel across the US from what appears to be Boston to Santa Cruz with his partner, and both of them consult Siri throughout the trip. In "Rock God," a young man progresses from locating a guitar store to forming a rock band and changes the name Siri addresses him by.
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02/09, 7:35pm
Google wireless audio may come through silence
Google's apparent decision to make its own wireless audio system appears to have come after stopping at least some activity with accessory makers, according to Electronista sources. Now said to have based its work on the Android@Home technology shown at Google I/O last year, the company had been talking to accessory makers building up to the May event but grew silent not long after. The silence might not necessarily have been ubiquitous, but it suggested that Google had taken the reins to make a product of its own.
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02/09, 7:00pm
Hand wave starts voice recognition reportting
Waze, an Israel-based mobile-apps start-up has issued a new release of its iOS version of its app to let drivers report traffic conditions while still staying focused on the road (free, App Store). The app makes use of the iPhone's proximity detector to activate voice recognition by waving a hand. It then asks a series of questions which helps the driver create and send a traffic report.
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02/09, 6:25pm
Motorola says Android too linked to hardware
Motorola was unusually critical of its likely future acquirer Google late Wednesday in an interview. Senior enterprise business VP Christy Wyatt claimed to PCMag that Google made timely Android OS updates difficult because of its tendency to target each major release against a reference phone like the Galaxy Nexus. Since the initial release only supported that hardware, no other Android partner could get started on drivers and other code they needed to get moving.
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02/09, 4:20pm
iPhones, iPads become de facto hardware
The US government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is dropping BlackBerries from the roster of supported devices for workers, reports indicate. A memo from CIO Joseph Klimavicz, dated February 3rd, is said to show that BlackBerry support will end after May 12th. Beyond that point, the organization is throwing its weight behind iOS, the minimum standards being iOS 5, an iPhone 4, or an iPad 2.
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02/09, 1:40pm
Motion, sunlight could affect appearance
Apple has been exploring the idea of a 3D iOS interface that reacts to its surroundings, a newly-published patent application reveals. Called Three Dimensional User Interface Effects on a Display by Using Properties of Motion, the document notes that products like the iPhone have the benefit of numerous different sensors, such as accelerometers, compasses, cameras, and GPS receivers. "However, current systems do not take into account the location and position of the device on which the virtual 3D environment is being rendered," Apple writes. The company also mentions "physical and lighting properties of the user's environment" as factors that could be taken into account for presenting "a more interesting and visually appealing" interface.
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02/09, 1:25pm
Apple hits symbolic stock value
An exceptional run on Apple stock over the past few days has made Apple's stock value worth more than either of its two most direct rivals combined. A comparison has shown that, as of mid-day Thursday, Apple's market cap of about $456 billion was greater than both those of Google ($198.9 billion) and Microsoft ($256.7 billion). As noted by AppleInsider, Apple was taking advantage of both Google missing targets and bruising its share as well as Microsoft's historic inability to excite shareholders.
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02/09, 12:25pm
SmartData claims Apple violates modular PC idea
Apple is facing a rare instance of foreign patent trolling this week after a discovery that Swiss firm SmartData has sued it over a lone patent. The accusation, quietly filed earlier in the week in Apple's home court district in San Jose, alleged that the Apple TV, the iPhone, and the iOS Remote app violated a patent for a "modular computer." Using Remote on the iPhone to control content on the Apple TV copied the technology, the plaintiff argued.
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02/09, 10:20am
New targets reach as high as $665
Two financial analysts have raised their targets for Apple stock. The highest target comes from Canaccord Genuity's Michael Walkley, who has pushed his forecast up to $655. "Our monthly channel checks indicated very strong sales trends for the iPhone 4S at all three U.S. carriers and overall strong iPhone sales in international markets. We are increasing our March quarter iPhone estimates from 30.1 million to 32.6 million units," he elaborates. Walkley's 2012 EPS prediction is being raised from $41.06 to $42.81.
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02/08, 5:40pm
Foursquare 4.2 packs Explore remake and more
Foursquare updated its iOS (App Store) and Android (Market) apps Wednesday to roll in some of the features seen from the web. Explore now has contextual results for locations, such as pushing restaurants to the top at dinnertime, what friends have been doing, and whether they're on lists. A filter lets users skew the results to look for undiscovered places or those friends visit frequently.
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02/08, 4:15pm
Tweetbot gets big overhaul with tablet version
Tapbots revamped its signature Twitter apps in large form on Wednesday, starting with the surprise release of Tweetbot for iPad ($3, App Store). The new version both adapts to the bigger canvas of the tablet and shares its support for creating multiple timelines from one account and gestures to save time. Likewise, it can save content for later through Cloudapp, Instapaper, and Read it Later.
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02/08, 4:10pm
Path deletes user contact lists, outs Path 2.0.6
Smartphone app developer Path has apologized and fixed the tendency of its app to collect user's entire contact lists to its own servers when the app is first launched. The Android app was already fixed, and now, the developers have released an updated iOS app, version 2.0.6 (free, App Store) that won't upload the data without a user's permission. Dave Morin, Path's co-founder and CEO, also explained that the contacts were used only in the Add Friends features to notify users when their contacts log into the app.
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02/08, 3:30pm
iOS 5.1 gets tentative launch window
New digging in the iOS 5.1 beta has given a possible clue as to Apple's target date for the OS. About 11 new carrier profiles all have references to an Apple diagnostic web address with "09Mar2012-Update" in the timeframe, suggesting to YourDailyMac's discoverer that the date was at least being kept in mind for a launch or a milestone. It touched on all existing iOS devices and at least five countries, pointing to a simultaneous release.
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02/08, 3:15pm
Could coincide with iPad refresh
A Chinese version of Siri will launch next month, claims DoNews. The website quotes an Apple engineer said to be working on the project, who adds that the technology is already in internal testing, and will moreover be able to process information and navigation requests, something only US Siri users currently enjoy. General language support has so far been restricted to three different English accents, as well as French and German.
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02/08, 1:25pm
Samsung MWC plans drop special event too
Samsung has hinted that any products shown at Mobile World Congress may be low-profile after it stated Wednesday that it had no plans for a special event at the Barcelona show. The company didn't rule out any "exciting new products" in a response to PCMag inquiries, but it hinted that it not only would miss the Galaxy S III but that any other major unveilings would wait until later as well. No clues exist as to when special events might take place later.
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02/08, 12:35pm
Fixes regular complaints
Evernote has released a new version of its iOS notetaking app, v4.1.8. While relatively minor, the update does make two important changes. These include "predictive" note titles, which will give otherwise untitled items a label based on factors like time, location, and other pieces of contextual data.
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02/08, 9:35am
Sprint gives more details of LTE, iPhone in call
Sprint in the wake of its fall results expanded its LTE plans and also touted the iPhone as a better option for its network than Android. The carrier now planned to add its original WiMAX city, Baltimore, to the cities getting LTE-based 4G by mid-2012. Sprint's home area of Kansas City was also new and would see a total of six cities getting the new network.
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02/08, 8:30am
Nokia moves smartphones to Asia to cut costs
Nokia showed the toughening conditions of the smartphone field on Wednesday after it detailed plans to cut 4,000 manufacturing jobs. Positions both in its home territory factory in Salo, Finland, as well as in Komarom, Hungary and Reynosa, Mexico, would be eliminated by the end of 2012. Smartphone production would be moving more towards Asia, where it wouldn't just be cheaper to make devices, but faster.
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02/08, 7:50am
Sprint owes big subscriber turnaround to iPhone
Sprint on Wednesday revealed a huge upswing in subscriber additions through its inaugural quarter of iPhone sales. It sold 1.8 million iPhones during the fall, 40 percent of which went to people new to the network. Apple's device was almost single-handedly responsible for returning Sprint to performance it hasn't seen in years: at 1.6 million net new subscribers, it saw the most adds since 2005 and had set a new high for its customer base at 55 million.
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02/07, 9:05pm
Does not reflect possible iPad 3 screen upgrade
Apple has sent out notifications to iOS developers that future updates to apps now require higher-resolution, 960x640 (Retina Display) compatible screenshots or the apps will not be approved. The change is a minor one (previous guidelines suggested, but did not require, Retina Display-level screenshots) and reflects the company's burgeoning base of iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and fourth-generation iPod Touch users, all of whom have higher-resolution screens.
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02/07, 6:30pm
Telus goes all-in on Optik console and mobile
Telus' Optik IPTV service got much more control over non-traditional viewing on Tuesday. Optik TV for Xbox 360 takes advantage of the fall Xbox 360 Dashboard update to use the console as the set-top box, including for remote DVR viewing if there's a traditional DVR on the same network. The support includes full Kinect motion control.
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02/07, 5:20pm
Smart Audio aims to profit from others' audio work
Mostly unknown Smart Audio Technologies has hoped to skim profits from the audio industry after filing a low-key lawsuit late last week that was publicized Tuesday. The Delaware-based complaint accuses Apple, Creative Labs, and Philips of violating the same February 2001-era patent for car audio system with a random access player that supports playlists. Smart Audio isn't clear what products are violating its technology, although iOS and iPod devices are possible candidates.
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02/07, 4:40pm
Industry slipped in Q4 without Apple help
Looking at fourth-quarter results, Apple now represents almost half of cellphone/mobile computing industry revenues, and over 80 percent of its profits, says Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis McCourt. The industry is in fact said to have risen about 34 percent with Apple results included, but actually dropped 0.4 percent without the company. Some businesses might actually crack in the face of Apple competition and leave the market this year, the analyst argues, calling it a "make or break" period.
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02/07, 12:50pm
Alpha tech built deep into Siri system
Siri now represents about a quarter of all the queries submitted to Wolfram Alpha, says the New York Times. The Siri technology is an integral feature of the iPhone 4S firmware, and aside from direct voice commands, allows asking plain-language questions about various facts and figures. A Wolfram Alpha widget primarily answers questions related to math and numerical facts, such as the distance to the moon.
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02/07, 12:15pm
Hasbro, Nerf make Lazer Tag an iPhone, iPod game
Hasbro and Nerf have brought Lazer Tag back with iOS as its cornerstone. While the blasters can work in multiplayer without any device, mounting an iPhone or iPod touch in a special holder gives them an app that both extends the firing range to 250 feet and introduces a HUD that shows the trajectory and ongoing stats. As many as 24 people can play at once with leaderboards that can update mid-match.
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02/07, 6:55am
Canon launches three AIO printers
Canon has introduced three all-in-one Pixma printers, the MX372, the MX512 Wireless and the MX432 Wireless. The two wireless enabled devices both support AirPrint allowing users to print directly from an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. The printers are also accompanied by a companion mobile app, Canon Easy-PhotoPrint that is available for both iOS- and Android-based smartphones and tablets and now allows users to print PDFs created directly on the devices, not just photos as previously.
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02/06, 8:00pm
Replacement expected from within company
Apple's Vice President of iPhone and iPod Engineering David Tupman quietly exited the company at the end of 2011, sources say, and a replacement has not yet been named. Tupman, who reported directly to Senior Vice President of Hardware Bob Mansfield, has not updated his LinkedIn profile to reflect the change but is said to be taking up with a new startup operation. Apple is seeking a replacement for Tupman within its own ranks.
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02/06, 7:00pm
Bug keeps messages flowing to stolen iPhones
A flaw in the iMessage protocol that causes it to continue to route messages to an iPhone even after its SIM has been removed and deactivated has gotten the attention of Apple in a very direct way: a customer demand to be compensated for the problem, which the company has allegedly done. TheNextWeb reports that an unnamed customer who had her iPhone stolen but which continued to receive iMessages has now received an iPod Touch as compensation.
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02/06, 5:55pm
Apple gets closer to using macroscalar name
Apple late last week quietly filed for a US trademark that shows it possibly getting closer to having its own chip architecture. After having slowly filed trademarks in countries outside the US, such as Trinidad and Tobago, the joint USPTO and Hong Kong application caught by Patently Apple suggests that Apple has been continuing development on a project it could be willing to show soon. Mentions of work had started as early as 2004.
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02/06, 4:55pm
Pedal can be programmed using iPad, iPhone or iPod
Harman has started delivering its DigiTech iStomp programmable effects pedal. Users can program the the guitar stompbox using their iPhone, iPad or iPod touch to make potentially any sound, not just distortion or other effects associated with filters. Twenty alternative sound effects are available for download.
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02/06, 4:25pm
Facebook photo sharing app is in development
The leaked images of a Facebook app last summer will not result in a photo-sharing app after all, Business Insider has learned. The photos were simply meant to showcase of what such an app could look like and in fact little development work was done on the app. Also, the source revealed that Facebook is still working on improving the mobile photo-sharing experience, but the team assigned to it is different from the one in the summer.
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